


Such Unimaginable Things

by rivlee



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dave lives, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2019-11-08 07:59:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 37,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17977427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivlee/pseuds/rivlee
Summary: Through a combination of superpowers, time traveling briefcases, and pure luck, Klaus brings Dave back to his time.





	1. Things Have Changed

**Author's Note:**

> Who didn't immediately want to write a Dave!Lives AU? 
> 
> Thanks to Nat and Alex for the encouragement.

Ten months ago Klaus Hargreeves didn’t know, or want to know, or honestly gave a damn, about time travel. His only experience with the subject, outside of the books Ben liked to read and loudly criticize for no one but Klaus to hear, was the reappearance of Five, days ago, claiming he was an old man in a teenager’s body. An actual old man, not just the arrogant little jackass Klaus had fondly remembered always smelling of peanut butter, marshmallows, and ink. They’d all been arrogant assholes then--still were--except Vanya, of course. Five had been the worst of them though, even worse than Luther, with that smug smirk and the poofing in and out of rooms. 

Klaus had been jealous once of Five’s master of his own abilities. But then Five had disappeared because little Icarus Hargreeves reached too high too fast and Klaus had said fuck it to all of it. What was the point of talking to the dead and moving things with his mind and all that other shit if he’d just disappear in the end. It’d always been easier to forget and numb and drown it all out. Daddy Dearest couldn’t experiment on Klaus if he wasn’t ‘in his proper mind.’ 

Ten months ago, or fifty-one years ago, or a day ago, depending on your timeline, Klaus had gotten kidnapped, tortured, forced into sobriety, and dropped in a motherfucking warzone by a time traveling briefcase. There probably could’ve been worse time and places to land—he knew there was—but Vietnam in 1968 had Dave at the very least. It also had pants shitting terror and death. So much death. So many voices crying and screaming to be heard and no Ben there to encourage Klaus on as his little sobriety cheerleader. But even with the blood and the death and so very many ghosts, Vietnam still had Dave and booze and pills and other things to help him cope. 

And then Time made Klaus its little bitch again.

Dave had been shot. Klaus had been doing his damndest to keep the blood inside, where it was supposed to stay, wishing for Mom or Diego or Pogo or someone to come help. And then there’d been that damn flash again, and Klaus was on a city bus, one bloody hand on the briefcase, one bloody hand on Dave’s chest, and an entire bus full of people yelling in surprise. 

As resurrections went, it certainly wasn’t Klaus’ finest moment. And he sincerely missed his paramedic buddies in that moment.

Here, back home, in this time, it’d been hours. Not even a full day. He’d gained ten months, pounds of muscle, and Dave laid out on an operating table with Mom and Pogo doing their best. 

“You want to grab a shower?” Diego asked. He nudged Klaus just this side of too hard. “You smell like shit.”

“Probably shit myself then,” Klaus said. His hands trembled as his brought his cigarette up for another drag. They were still covered in blood. It was under his nails, past his knuckles, trailing down his wrists. 

“Seriously, go shower,” Diego said. “I’ll stay here.”

“Promise?” Klaus asked, hating that the tremble in his voice was real this time.

“Promise,” Diego said. 

 

**************

Klaus wasn’t a stranger to blood on his hands. Between a childhood as a forced superhero, an adolescence full of drunken debauchery and back alley fucks and fights, and too many days and nights waking up surrounded by broken glass and his own vomit, Klaus knew blood well. He knew death well too of course, his constant companion, his little shoulder angel and devils. Vietnam wasn’t as much of a shock as it might have been for most people dropped through space and time into a war. Training and uniforms and yes sirs were his childhood, even though he’d spent his subsequent years rebelling in all ways possible. Klaus had been a good little soldier once, eager to please his Papa, until hours spent locked in a crypt and suffering through mission after mission where he’d immediately be haunted by the ghosts of the ‘bad guys’ his brother and sister had just so fatally dispatched. And then Five was gone. And then Ben was gone--or had at least shuffled off his current mortal coil. And then the Umbrella Academy was done. And Klaus was done. No more obedience, no more good little soldier, no more caring--no more feeling. 

And then darlingest daddy dearest kicked the bucket. And Five came back. And Klaus got dropped into Vietnam at the feet of a gorgeous, kind, _good_ young man. And numbness wasn’t an option when he had to be alert for Dave and his platoon. 

He’d never _cared_ so much about someone who wasn’t family. That was new, and as he laid back in the warm water of the bath, the porcelain of the tub cool on his neck, he’d honestly wondered how he’d deal with that. Then. Here. There. Now. 

“Wibbly wobbly timey wimey,” Ben said.

Klaus cracked one eye open and lazily smiled at the comforting sight of Ghost Ben in his best Grim Reaper black.

“You’re back,” he said. 

“So are you,” Ben said. “That’s was strange.”

“Where’d you go?” Klaus asked.

“Where’d _you_ go?” Ben countered. 

“To a galaxy far, far away,” Klaus said with a shake of his hand. “And you?”

“Haunted Diego for a little bit. He thought I was a fly.”

“That’s what happens when your inner-eye is filled with nothing but Slim Jims and bullshit.”

“Don’t be an asshole,” Ben said. “His detective friend died.”

Klaus sat up, water spilling over the edge of the tub. “Hazel and Cha-Cha?”

Ben nodded. 

Klaus reached out with shaky hands to grab a cigarette and his lighter. He didn’t care if it was damp. He needed something right now. Eudora? Patch? Diego had always liked her. Talked about her the few times he’d tracked Klaus down at whatever rehab he’d stumbled into. She had liked him too. Klaus had met her once when he’d been locked up for some public indecency. She’d made sure he had the good coffee while they waited for his lawyer to arrive. She’d always had kind eyes. 

“Diego’s going to kill them,” Klaus said.

“Yup,” Ben agreed. 

“Good,” Klaus said. 

He’d killed on orders. He’d spent years trying to kill himself. But he’d liked to think he didn’t kill as many innocent people as Hazel and Cha-Cha. He knew they also had their orders. And their jobs. Hazel clearly didn’t completely toe that corporate line. But he’d seen the ghosts of all their dead, victims across centuries of time, and there had been a morbid pleasure in the pain there. You didn’t need to beat someone's brains in like that when more peaceful methods could have done the trick. 

Klaus only had so much compassion in his body and most of it was devoted to a mostly-dead man in need of a medical miracle. He couldn’t care about two time-traveling contract killers.

“Good,” Klaus repeated and laid back in the tub. 

**************

He had a bottle of black nail polish in his hands, stolen from Allison’s room (a product of her brief goth phase), and stared down at his plain bare feet. The muscle and the tattoos from Vietnam had stayed with him, but the sores from his boots were all but gone. His toenails were clear and clean and plain. He couldn’t have that, not if Dave was going to come out of this alive, and not if Klaus needed his feet out to conjure dear old Reggie. 

It was hard to explain to the others why he needed bare feet to conjure. Ben got it. It was about having an anchor. As long as he could feel something solid beneath his feet, it made it easier to reach out into the world. Feet on the ground meant he couldn’t get lost. Feet on the ground meant the ghosts couldn’t take over his body. Feet on the ground meant safety. 

But he couldn’t go out into the world with his bare little piggies. They needed some polish. 

“Don’t be such a stereotype,” Ben said. “You could at least put a glitter top coat on.”

“Shh,” Klaus said. “Don’t mess with the master when he’s at work.”

It was a hell of a lot easier to paint with steady hands. 

“You’re going to stick to the black eyeliner too?” Ben asked.

Klaus grinned up at him. “Well, I do want to look my best.” He studied his reflection in the mirror. “Maybe I’ll mix in a little grey.”

“At least wear something colorful,” Ben advised. He pawed at his hoodie. “I’m so tired of black on black on black on black.”

“Don’t tell Diego that,” Klaus said. “You’ll offend his delicate fashion sensibility.” 

He didn’t have much in the way of clothes here, and there was only so much he could raid from Allison’s closet. His leather pants would have to do, but he might be able to wear one of his old shirts. 

“That’s not going to pass the sniff test,” Ben warned as he watched Klaus riffle through his clothes. 

“Fine,” Klaus said. He broke into Luther’s room and grabbed something out of his closet. It’s not like Luther could wear anything in there anymore. 

He walked back to his room and held up the blue-grey v-neck for Ben’s inspection.

“Better,” Ben said. 

Klaus pulled the shirt on, Dave’s dog tags clinking against his chest, and gave a twirl. “How do I look?”

Ben tilted his head to the side, barely hiding the smile on his face. “What are you going to do with your hair?”

There was no real satisfaction in throwing balled-up underwear at a ghost, since it went right through them, but it was worth it for the sound of Ben’s laughter ringing in his ears. 

 

**************

Dave still wasn’t awake, though Mom and Pogo remained hopeful, but idleness was a danger to Klaus right now. So when Diego threw a ball of black yarn and knitting needles at him, he figured he could at least try. How hard was it to make a sock? Honestly?

Klaus had abandoned the yarn by the door of the operating room and had stretched out on the floor instead, flipping through a twenty-year-old _Bop_ magazine. Everything was going swimmingly until his reading on the Backstreet Boys' favorite foods was so rudely interrupted. 

“You’re an idiot,” Five said. He smelled of coffee and peanut butter and his shiny schoolboy shoes kicked at Klaus’ ribs as he sat down beside him. “Who stays in a war when they have a time traveling ticket out?”

“Well, I met a boy,” Klaus said. He straightened up and reached for his pack of cigarettes. Five batted them away and shoved a paper cup of coffee into his hands. One vice for another didn’t matter much to Klaus right now. Caffeine and nicotine were like taking baby aspirins at this point.

Ben laughed at him from the corner and Klaus gave him the finger as he choked down the blackest coffee he’d ever had in his life.

“A little sugar wouldn’t kill you, kiddo,” Klaus said as his whole body shuddered at the horrible taste .

“I don’t like sugar in my coffee,” Five said. “Where’s the briefcase?” 

“I don’t know,” Klaus said. Probably on the street somewhere. Did he come home with it? He didn’t remember.

“How do you not know?” Five asked.

Klaus shrugged. “I was trying to keep all the blood on the inside of Dave’s body.”

“You’re an idiot,” Five said again. He ripped the coffee mug out of Klaus’ hands and started to write a string of equations on the sides. “I don’t know if your friend there has screwed up the math. Probably.”

“He’s not a friend.”

“Fine,” Five said, no hesitation in his continued string of numbers. “Your boyfriend has screwed up the math. An unexpected variable.” He glanced up at Klaus then, that razor sharp smile across his lips. “I should’ve expected as much from you; despite what everyone else may think, you’re not that predictable.”

Klaus batted his eyes at him. “That's the nicest thing you've ever said about me.”

Five just grunted and continued with his math. Klaus went back to his magazine and tried not to think about the long night of waiting before him.

“Is that glitter?” Five asked, staring at Klaus’ toes.

Klaus wiggled them, smiling as they caught the light. “Ben’s suggestion.”

“Our dead brother told you to paint your toenails with glitter?” Five asked.

“Almost as ridiculous as my senior citizen brother stuck in a teenager body criticizing my body adornment choices.”

Five shrugged. “Fair point.” 

*************

Luther had given him the _I’m not mad I’m just disappointed_ look until Klaus had left his vigil to eat something. Allison had kept him company, quiet as she plotted something out in a wirebound notebook.

“What’s the news, Nancy Drew?” he asked.

She look up, almost surprised to see him still there, and smiled. “Just following a hunch.” She reached over and swiped one of his carrot sticks, quick hands like when they were kids. “You’re lucky.”

Klaus laughed to himself. “Really?”

Allison nodded. “Those thugs hurt Mom, shut her down. Pogo had just finished fixing her when you arrived.”

Klaus didn’t want to imagine what would’ve happened if Mom and Pogo hadn’t been there.

“Chalk one up for perfect timing then,” Klaus said. He reached over and swiped her notebook. “Whose address is this?”

Allison looked torn. She fiddled with her pen for a solid minute before sighing. “I don’t like Vanya’s new friend.”

Klaus froze in shock. “Vanya? Our Vanya? Our little solitary sister has a new friend? Wait--friend or _friend_ friend?”

“ _Friend_ friend,” Allison said. “Maybe. Has Vanya every dated anyone before?”

Klaus couldn’t recall. He didn’t remember anybody in their youth and Vanya never mentioned anyone in the letters she wrote while he was in rehab. “I always thought she was Asexual, or at least something like that.”

Allison looked sad as she stared down at the table. “I don’t know. I never asked. Never bothered to, but this guy--I don’t like him.” She met his eyes, fiery determination of old in them. “I don’t like him at all.”

“Creepy vibes,” Klaus said. He’d always trusted himself to run in the other direction when he got that feeling. One part of his intuition that never let him down.

“I bet he has jerk nails,” Ben said as he flipped through a worn copy of _A Brief History of Time_.

“Seriously creepy vibes,” Allison said. She took her notebook back and closed it. “So,” she said, resting her chin on her hand, “tell me about this Dave.”

Klaus didn’t know how much he could say now. He was doing a good job with his best friend Denial. If he pretended everything was normal he could almost ignore the itch under his skin, the bile rising in his throat, and the occasional twitch in his hands.

“He’s a good one,” Klaus finally said.

“Yeah?” Allison asked.

Klaus nodded and went back to his feast of carrot sticks, tomato soup, and grilled cheese. 

**************

Klaus couldn’t stop staring at the chandelier in the foyer. It would figure once the old man died that everything would start going to shit, the house falling to pieces around them. 

“You should put some shoes on,” Ben said. 

Klaus smiled as he thought of some brilliant days in his past. “Remember when I walked across hot coals?”

“Should’ve worn shoes then too,” Ben said. He splayed out on the stairs. “If you’re not going to clean it up, you should just leave it alone.”

“I could clean it up,” Klaus said.

Ben snorted. “Do you even know where the broom is?”

“Do we have a broom?” Klaus asked. “Or did Diego break it in half and use it for some sharp force trauma against our invaders?”

“Allison did that and it was with a pool stick,” Diego said. He had a coat on and his suitcase in his hand.

“Where are you going?” Klaus asked.

“Out,” Diego said.

Out. Out could be good. Klaus patted his chest. “I’ll go get my things.”

“I’m not your chauffeur,” Diego said.

Klaus didn’t pay any attention to Diego’s complaints. He was always there to give Klaus a ride when he needed it.

“Klaus, dear,” Mom said, appearing at the top of the stairs.

He looked up at her, almost afraid to ask. Diego stood behind him, hand on his shoulder.

“Your friend’s awake now,” she said. “He still needs some rest, but you can see him.”

Klaus ran past her, turned around to hug her tight and kiss her cheek, and then ran the rest of the way, Ben and Diego beside him.

Five was at the doorway of the lab, sipping a cup of coffee and staring Dave down. “We don’t have time for this,” he muttered. “Four days until the end of the world and Klaus has to bring home a Lazarus," he said as he walked away.

Dave looked scared. Not like when they had when bombs and bullets flying at them, but truly, unbelievably freaked-the-fuck-out scared. He was beautiful, even with the bandages across his chest and the IVs sticking out of his arms. 

“Hi,” Klaus said.

“Where?” Dave asked. “When?” he looked around the room, his brow scrunching as he took in Pogo. “How?”

“He forgot ‘who’ and ‘why,’” Ben said.

Dave turned and look directly at Ben. “Who? Why?” he asked.

Klaus nearly stumbled to the ground in shock. “You can see him?” he asked.

“You can see me?” Ben asked.

Dave slowly nodded. 

“Holy shit,” Klaus and Ben said in unison.


	2. In the Jingle Jangle Morning

“He can see who?” Diego asked.

“Ben,” Klaus said as Ben waved at Diego.

Diego glanced around the room. “Ben’s here?”

“Ben’s always with me,” Klaus said, a hand solemnly placed over his heart. “Well, mostly.” 

“No one likes to watch you jerk off,” Ben said.

“Dave quite enjoys the show,” Klaus argued.

Dave didn’t say anything, but his face turned a brilliant pink. Klaus had to wink at him, and then grin when that brilliant pink started traveling down from that curly hairline to his neck. It was possibly a bad idea to make a recently resurrected man blush, but Klaus still felt a rush of victory in his blood. 

“What do you mean ‘Ben is Always With You?’” Diego asked. He glanced down at Klaus’ feet. “You said you can’t conjure unless you’re in your bare feet and I’ve seen your shoe collection. He can't be with you _all_ the time.”

“I don’t have to conjure Ben,” Klaus said as he wiggled his bare toes, the light catching the glitter.

“What do you mean you don’t have to conjure Ben?” Diego asked. He had that sort of desperate look on his face that only came when people started brandishing needles around him and trying to take his blood. 

“Boys,” Pogo called, leaning on his cane as if he felt every last one of his years. “We can discuss Master Klaus’ and Master Ben’s connection later. Perhaps it would be better now if we let Master Klaus speak with Mister?”

“Dave Cunningham,” Klaus said. “My very own _Happy Days_ boy.” He started to hum the theme as he winked at Dave. 

Ben pretended to gag while Diego rolled his eyes. He grabbed Klaus’ shoulder. “We’re discussing this later. And you’re helping me clean the blood out of my backseat.” He nodded at Dave. “Nice to meet you. We’ll talk later.”

Dave watched him go. “That sounded like a threat.”

“It probably was,” Klaus said. He flopped into the chair Pogo had kindly left beside the bed. “So, welcome back to the land of the living. Please excuse the drab decor. Herr Hargreeves had no taste.”

“Beats a hole in the ground," Dave said. He pressed a hand to the stark white bandages on his chest. “Is this real?”

Klaus leaned on his bedside, chin in his hands, feeling lighter now that Dave was awake and talking. “Oh, darling, do you often dream a little dream of me?”

Ben laughed and Klaus knew Pogo had rolled his eyes at them. Dave tilted his head to the side and squinted.

“I--I’m sorry is that a talking money?” he asked.

Klaus turned around and smiled at Pogo. “A chimpanzee to be perfectly accurate. Our dear, Pogo. More of a father to us than our legal one.” He gestured for Pogo to come closer. “He and Mom helped saved you.”

Pogo nodded. “It’s an honor to help one of Master Klaus’ friends, though I must check on the others now. And call someone to fix the chandelier.” He patted Klaus’ shoulder. “He’s still recovering.”

Klaus gasped in pretend shock. “What are you implying, Pogo?”

Pogo shook his head. “Ease Mr. Cunningham into this, is all.”

“I never forget to ease the way into anything,” Klaus called as Pogo left the room. 

He turned back to Dave who still had that blush and that look of shock. Klaus took his hands in his own, drawing Dave’s attention away from all the impossible things like time travel, talking chimpanzees, and Ben haunting the corner. 

“I reacted badly to you getting shot,” Klaus said. It was the only true explanation he could give.

Dave’s laugh was soft and knowing. “More balls than brains,” he muttered. 

It was a common thing Doc Wilson, their unit’s favorite medic, had always said about him as he stitched up or disinfected whatever new wound or tattoo Klaus had stumbled upon. 

It was in that moment, holding Dave’s hand, Ben’s quiet comforting presence in the corner, that Klaus knew he had officially reached one of those Before and After points in his life. Before and After the Crypt. Before and After Five Disappeared. Before and After Ben Died. Before and After the Academy Ended. Before and After Dad Died. Before and After Time Travel. Before and After Dave. 

Before and After Vietnam. 

He took a slow, shaky breath and gripped Dave’s hand tighter. “So, you can see ghosts now, apparently.”

Ben took a seat on Dave’s bed. “Hi,” he said. “Klaus won’t shut up about you.”

Dave turned his gorgeous eyes on Klaus. “He doesn’t ever shut up.”

“Well, sometimes,” Klaus tried to joke.

Dave tightened his hold on their hands. “You okay?”

Dave was a good, kind man who was recovering from a near fatal chest wound, woke up fifty years in the future, tended to by a cyborg and a talking animal, seeing dead Ben, and still somehow worried about Klaus.

There was no way, in any life, in any realm, in any world, Klaus deserved him. But Dave hadn’t taken a running leap away from him yet, so Klaus was just going to hold on a little longer.

“Told you he’s a good one,” Klaus said to Ben.

Ben nodded. “Want me to go do some research to explain,” he waved his hand around, “this? Not that I don’t enjoy having someone else to talk to, but this is weird.”

Klaus could always count on Ben, even with death between them. “Yeah, could you? Please?”

“Of course,” Ben said. He patted the top of Klaus’ head, pushing his curls down. “You need some rest too.”

“Yeah,” Klaus agreed. 

Dave nodded at Ben as he left, but Klaus couldn’t take his eyes off the living, breathing, warm, _alive_ man in the bed. He didn’t deserve such a miracle, and the actual ghosts in his past whispered in his ears about curses and prices to be be paid. But the world was ending anyway, according to Five at least, so they could all just fuck off for a few days and let Klaus have this last little bit of good. 

“Can’t believe you’re here and alive.” His fingers tapped against Dave’s wrist, then pressed down to feel the strong pulse there.

“Where is _here_ exactly?” Dave asked. “And when?”

Klaus had hoped to wait a little longer for all this, and he would only give the bare minimum for Dave’s sake now, but Dave could be the most inquisitive man in the world when he was after something. 

“May I?” Klaus asked gesturing to the bed, climbing in when Dave nodded.

“We’re in the lovely city of Municipal, yes, that’s its real name, in the year of some people’s lord and savior, 2019.” He pressed a finger to Dave’s chapped lips when he saw the question about to form there. “Shhh. I don’t know how. Ben’s trying to figure it out.”

Dave’s eyes showed the new shock as he leaned forward, head resting on Klaus’ shoulder. 

“Welcome to my home, of a sorts,” Klaus said.

Dave took a deep, shuddering breath. “Holy shit,” he whispered into the skin of Klaus’ neck. He was silent for a few minutes and then said, “At least you smell nice.”

Klaus had to laugh then, even if everything else felt a little fragile.

**************

He needed Five. Ben had nothing but time to read all the books in the world, but Five had actually fucked with time over and over again. For a little bastard so concerned about thwarting the apocalypse, it was hard as hell to track him down.

Klaus had spent most of the night curled up in Dave’s bed, only leaving him now so Mom could give him a proper bed bath. He’d offered to stay and help and enjoy the show, but Mom wouldn’t budge and Luther had physically picked him up and carried him out the room.

“I’m lodging a formal protest,” Klaus said as he stretched out on the couch. The sun wasn’t even up yet and it was far _far_ too early for Luther and all his Number One-ness. “After I find Five.”

“Good luck with lodging a protest about our fearless leader to our fearless leader,” Ben said.

Klaus hissed at him. “How goes the research?”

“What research?” Luther asked, placing a cup of coffee in front of him.

Klaus waved him off. “I’m not talking to you.”

Luther looked around the empty, to him at least, room. “Who are you talking to, then?”

Klaus didn’t really want to get into this again. They knew he could speak with the dead. They should have figured it out by now rather than think Klaus was talking to his imaginary friend.

“Einstein,” he said. “I’ve conjured good old Al to teach me about relativity.” He took a sip of his coffee and made a face. “This much sugar could kill you.”

Luther said nothing as he sipped his mug of death. “Have you seen Five?” he asked. 

Luther, for all his golden boy status, could sometimes be very slow on the uptake and lax on the details.

“Number One,” Klaus said in a perfect imitation of Good Old Reggie, “if I knew where Number Five was, why would I be looking for him?”

“Are you?” Luther asked. 

“I have a few questions that I’m positive only he can answer,” Klaus said. “Unless you’re suddenly an expert on time travel.”

“I’ll check the roof,” Luther said.

“I’ll check the coffee shop down the street,” Klaus said.

**************

Five and the lovely lady Dolores were splayed out on a park bench watching the sun rise. Five was completely still--no twitching of his fingers or tapping of his foot--a statue of a boy on a bench with a coffee cup and half a mannequin. 

“Do the monkey bars factor into your equations?” Klaus asked as he hopped over the bench. 

“Depends on how far the metal could fly in an explosion,” Five said. He turned to Klaus, defeat in his eyes. “I couldn’t find the briefcase. I went to where Diego said he picked you up--and nothing.”

“I’m pretty sure the bus might’ve run over it,” Klaus said. He only felt a little bad about that. “It really wasn’t my priority at the time. I didn’t even know what it was--since when our time machines contained in briefcases?”

“Since the Space Race,” Five said. He spread his arms out across the bench. “You’ve truly fucked with the timeline,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s enough to make them send another team out or not.” He smirked. “That might just be what we need.”

“Yeah about that whole time travel thing,” Klaus said. “So did your former employer ever do research into what happened if a possibly-dying-almost-dead person was dragged through time?”

“Why?” Five asked.

“Because Dave can see and speak to Ben,” Klaus said.

“Huh,” Five said. He looked surprised. “That’s new. It could be a temporary transfer of part of your power to him, I suppose. I wonder if it’s to do with you and Ben rather than Ben himself. Though it leaves its own question.”

“Which is?” Klaus asked. He always hated when Five lorded his greater knowledge over them all.

“What happens when a living creature, in this case Ben, who could access multiple dimensions dies? Does he die across each dimension? Fully extinguish out of all universes?” Five fingers twitched.

Klaus dug into his coat pocket and pulled out a pen and pad of paper. He shoved them at Five.

“Do the math and get back to me,” he said. “Because I need to tell Dave something.”

Five fiddled with the pen like it was butterfly knife. “You do know the world is ending, right?”

“You keep saying that,” Klaus said. 

“And this is what you want me to focus on?” Five asked.

It wasn’t _all_ Klaus wanted him to focus on. He knew forming a plan to somehow postpone the apocalypse was still important, but they had days for that if Five was to believed. They'd always been a last minute outfit, forming attack plans on the fly, despite all of Dear Old Reggie's best attempts. 

“You’re the one always muttering about how the smallest thing can change time,” Klaus said. “How do we know having Dave here doesn’t alter something significant? Maybe I just skipped through an entire field of butterflies.”

“If anyone could alter the end of days because they overreacted to someone’s inevitable fate, it would be you,” Five admitted.

“Clearly not inevitable,” Klaus said.

“The day is young,” Five muttered. He waved Klaus off. “Go see your boyfriend. I need to concentrate.”

“Thank you, brother dearest,” Klaus said. He stood over Five and tried to kiss his forehead, dancing away laughing as a scalding cup of coffee was thrown in his direction.

He really had missed that arrogant little bastard. 

 

**************

“Ready for a jailbreak?” Klaus asked, leaning on the door jamb of the operating room.

Dave glanced around. “You mean I get to leave this bed to do more than just piss?”

“Not much more,” Klaus said. “I thought I’d give you a little stroll around our Hall of Hubris and explain some more things about my family.”

“They’re really not at all what I imagined,” Dave admitted as he took Klaus’ outstretched arm. “You didn’t talk about them that much.”

“For all we’ve been through collectively and individually, we grew apart as we grew up,” Klaus said. “Well, except for me and Ben.”

“He’s really dead?” Dave asked. His fingers were warm on Klaus’ jaw. “Hey, you don’t have to tell me how it happened if you don’t want to. I just want to make sure I’m not completely crazy.”

“He’s a certified ex-Ben, for thirteen years now,” Klaus said. “Been singing with the choir invisible when not haunting my every step.”

They passed into the first part of the hall, full of action figures, cereal boxes, comic books, and other bits of merchandise. 

“You’re a comic book character?” Dave asked as he stopped in the middle of Reginald’s Hall of Ego and Glory. His fingers touched the glass case of the first edition of _The Umbrella Academy_ leaving the type of smudges that would absolutely make Daddy Dearest scream from whatever pocket of hell he’d fallen into. 

“Retired,” Klaus said as he padded after him, bare feet slapping on the cool floor. He held his hands out, palms up, showing the words tattooed there. “They called me ‘The Seance.’ Even made a special edition Ouija Board just for me.”

“You really do talk to the dead,” Dave said. “You weren’t just shitting the boys.” His face dropped. “It must’ve been hell for you.”

Klaus shrugged. “Drugs help keep the ghosties and ghoulies at bay. I need to be sober and barefoot to control the conjuring. Not being able to control it goes--well, to hell in a handbasket.”

Dave took his hands, tracing the words on his palms. “I’m so sorry. I just thought you were purposefully trying to give the new boots nightmares and be an insubordinate little bastard with these.”

Klaus rested his head on Dave’s shoulder, breathing in the clean scent of his own favorite soap. “To be fair, both of those statements are true. The other part is also true.”

He stepped back, tugging Dave further down the hallway to the official portraits. 

“Come and see,” he said. 

Dave’s jaw dropped a little as he took in the magnitude of the grand paintings, Klaus walked past the ones showing the various teams throughout the years, going instead to the individual portraits. He sat Dave on one of the antique overstuffed chairs and walked over to the first of the paintings, assuming the mantle of official tour guide. 

Luther’s was the most recent, seeing as how he never officially left the team. It was painted before his accident, Klaus assumed, or perhaps after with only his head being true to life. 

“I do have to give it to my darling Papa, he truly knew how to manipulate us from the start. Luther, the golden boy, our leader. And the one with the most easily manageable superpower. Super strength doesn’t take near the training or experimentation the rest of us faced. But Luther? The All-American corn fed farm boy look? He was our Number One.” Klaus raised his arms in a fake cheer. “Let’s hear it for the boy,” he said. “He was put forth as our leader, our most powerful, and he needed that, because what else could he be? The constant need for a leader’s approval and an idle mind could do such horrid things to the self-esteem. But we couldn’t let him get complacent, oh no, not at all. He needed to show he was the best by having competition, and that’s where Diego comes in.”

Klaus gestured to a teenage Diego’s star portrait.

“You met him yesterday, full-on Dark Knight vigilante that he has become. Diego also craved approval and love and leadership, but we couldn’t dare have a little Mexican boy with a speech impediment be our leader. Think of the scandal!” Klaus put his hands on his face an imitation of _The Scream_. "How could the racist assholes cope?"

“And Diego’s superpower?” Dave asked as he walked over to Klaus. 

“One would think it’s that he has perfect aim and accuracy with his knives, but that’s a skill he learned along with the cross stitching, the knitting, and being able to have a mostly stable life outside of this house. He can hold his breath underwater. Possibly forever.”

“The Kraken?” Dave asked, running his fingers over the engraved nameplate. 

Klaus nodded. He moved down the hall and stopped in front of Allison’s portrait. “Ah, Number Three. The Rumor. Allison can speak anything into truth, in an actual manner of speaking. Her words can alter a person’s actions.”

“How is that not more powerful than super strength?” Dave asked.

Klaus tapped his forehead. “Such a smart young man. Allison is a natural leader, but has never had any desire to fight the boys for that right. And then she went to Hollywood to spend years of her life pretending to be normal in a city full of actors dying to be superheroes. I always hoped she’d be the one to leave all this behind, and yet, here we all are again.”

He bowed in front of his own portrait. “And there’s me, of course, but you know all about that.” He moved on to Five’s huge portrait. “My time-traveling brother, Five. You met him, the schoolboy.”

“Time travel?”

“Saw the end of the world apparently, and just came home the other day. He’ll run actual circles around you, the little bastard.”

He stopped in front of Ben’s portrait, a picture of a young man forever frozen at seventeen. 

“And finally Ben and his stomach full of inter-dimensional wiggly worms.”

“And your other sister?” Dave asked. “There are seven of you, right?”

“Vanya,” Klaus said. “One could argue her power is invisibility since darling Papa deemed she had no superpower.” Klaus leaned against the empty spot on the wall that should’ve contained her portrait. “I don’t see how any child, born under the circumstances we were, could be completely normal.” He hummed the theme to _Phantom of the Opera_ one of Vanya’s favorites that she often played into the night. “She’s very good at the violin. That was her thing as a kid. She still does it now, from what I understand, when not writing tell-all books about our family.”

“She did that?” Dave asked.

Klaus never held it against her, unlike Diego, only shocked by some of the secrets she let the world know. “Someone eventually had to take that cash grab. And it’s not like she’s getting the loyalties from all The Umbrella Academy merch.”

 

Klaus opened his arms wide and gave a twirl. “So that’s me from birth until Ben’s death. Then Allison left, and I went running out into the great big world on her coattails. It’s amazing how many doors open when you drop the name of your movie stair sister. Got to travel the globe, have seen many a rehab, and danced entire days away.”

Dave stopped Klaus in the middle of his turn, resting his arms on Klaus’ hips.

“That’s it? No childhood friends? No one from school you were close to? No high school sweethearts out there?”

Klaus laughed at the very idea. “We weren't allowed to associate with the plebeians. We were born and raised and schooled inside these walls. Only let out for missions, the occasional educational field trip, and the extremely rare ice cream treat.” He snorted as he thought of his very formative years. “No wonder Allison and Luther almost when all Flowers in the Attic as kids. Thank god, Allison had the good sense to get the hell out of Dodge.”

“I’m going to pretend I understand what any of that means,” Dave said. He ran his fingers over the bare skin of Klaus’ belly, smiling at the shiver it caused. "You look different here,” he said. “I thought you were a Mod.”

Klaus shrugged. “Depends on the day. Ben says I’m more Walking Disaster. A gorgeous one, though.”

“Still haven’t kissed me yet,” Dave said.

“Well,” Klaus said as he wound his arms around Dave’s neck, fingers playing in the curls at the back of his neck, “you hadn't brushed your teeth yet. But now you’re all minty fresh and Zestfully clean, and how can any man resist that?”

“I can’t go home again, can I?” Dave asked before Klaus could kiss him. It was like a sudden punch to the gut. 

Klaus shook his head, tried not to draw in on himself and showed all the fear running through his veins. “I’m sorry. I just--”

“Reacted,” Dave said. “Hey,” his voice went low and soft, his fingers firm but careful on Klaus’ chin as he titled it up so their eyes could meet. “I’m not mad. Between time travel and death, I’ll take time travel.”

“I’m a fucking mess,” Klaus warned.

“Idiot,” Dave said, love coloring every letter of the word. “You think I didn’t already know that when you popped into my tent, covered in blood, bruises, make-up, and nothing but a coat, slippers, and a towel? In the middle of a war? You think I don’t know you by now?”

He didn’t in so many ways. He didn’t know how bad Klaus could get or how selfish he could be. He hadn’t seen Klaus desperate for drugs and willing to sell his own soul for some money to get a fix. He didn’t know some of the worst things Klaus had done, up to and including giving up on himself more than once.

But he did know ten months of Klaus in a war with nothing stronger than LSD to stave off the ghosts, and even that had to be shoved away most of the time. He knew Klaus in quiet moments, and the afterglow, and coming out of dreams and nightmares. He knew the beat of Klaus’ heart, often tapped it out on his chest in the middle of the night, daring to touch him even when others might have seen. 

He knew enough. And he still hadn’t asked to leave. 

Klaus pulled him into a hungry kiss, chapped lips and all, ignoring the loud clearing of Pogo’s throat and holding on to Dave for this one, perfect moment in time. Apocalypse be damned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so overwhelmed by how many people have enjoyed this fic so far. Thank you so much for reading and your support! 
> 
> Updates should be weekly, usually on Saturdays, though some weeks, like this one, they'll be a little early.


	3. A Stitch In Time (The Dave Interlude)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief Dave interlude that takes place between chapters two and four of the story. Essentially what Dave was doing while the brothers were using an ice cream truck for nefarious purposes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter/story was conceived/posted long before we got the information on Dave's last name/background, which is why it differs here than the canon we now know. So this fic is basically an AU of an AU at this point.

Dave woke up to a beautiful woman at his bedside. Allison. She looked different from her portrait, hair lighter, somehow more regal, and a worried downturn to her mouth as she fiddled with a notepad. He recognized her from somewhere else too, he realized now in the low light of the room. He thought she was an angel then--or some sort of being in the Afterlife.

“You told me I was going to survive,” he said.

She looked up, surprise only showing in her widened eyes. “You’re not supposed to remember that,” she said. “No one does.”

Dave laughed. He wasn’t supposed to be a lot of things right now, up to and including alive. 

“I didn’t know if it would work,” she admitted. “And maybe it didn’t. Maybe we just go to you in time, but I figured that it was time to see if I could do something wholly _good_ rather than destructive or selfish.” She looked up at him and shook her head. “It was still selfish though, I suppose. I did it for Klaus.”

It still wasn’t for her own personal gain, but the closed-in shoulders and sad smile on her face told Dave she wasn’t going to hear any of that, even if he told her over and over again. This poor fucking family. This house full of messed-up kids. 

Kids. They were all older than him by chronological years and by experiences lived. He may have been born in 1945, but he was only twenty-four years old. And he came from a family that loved him, even if they didn’t always understand him. His parents sent him to his Uncle Eddie and his _friend _Gene in the Village when he first told them the truth--a confession brought on by too much booze at a Fourth of July party and his parents tenth attempt in trying to set him up with Lucy Carrigan.__

__They could’ve disowned him, most of the family wouldn’t blame them for it, but his mother told him about what Uncle Eddie was like when he came back from World War II and brought Gene home with him. After he confessed to them, his mother hugged him and told him about the real reason Uncle Eddie had never married. His father had patted his shoulder and bought him the train ticket to New York City, driving him to the station and pushing even more money into his hands in case he wanted something from the meal car._ _

__He’d grown up surrounded by love and support. His mother had kissed his bruised knees when he’d fallen off his bike or out of trees. His dad had bought him his first baseball glove, cheered every game he’d played in, and let his seventeen-year-old son sob into his shoulder when a knee injury ended any big league dreams. And when he told them he was gay, they sent him off with their love to his uncles who listened to all his fears, let him explore the Village, its people, and its nightlife, while still providing a safety net, and answered any question he had._ _

__And then the draft came._ _

__He wondered what they told--will tell?--his parents. Was he killed in action? Missing in action? Would he be accused of deserting? Would his family get his benefits?_ _

__“Christ on a cracker,” Dave muttered. His head was aching just contemplating it all._ _

__“You look like you need a drink,” Allison said._ _

__He could use one. “Pretty sure your mom or Pogo would strap me to this bed if I even tried.” He looked up at Allison’s amused face. “And what’s with the oatmeal?”_ _

__She patted his hand. “Once you’re healed, Mom will let you have eggs and bacon.” Her eyes strayed to the bandages on his chest. “How are you healing?”_ _

__“For a guy who should be dead, I think I’m doing good,” he said. “Chest still aches. I can’t stand for too long. I’m not looking forward to attempting stairs.”_ _

__“And we have so many of them,” Allison said. Her eyes went hazy as if she was stuck in a memory. “Did Klaus tell you about the time he broke his jaw?”_ _

__“No,” Dave said, sitting up to soak in this new piece of the Klaus’ jigsaw puzzle._ _

__“He was trying to mimic one of Prince’s routines. _Let’s Go Crazy_ , I think. Prince was a really famous musician when we were kids. Anyway, Klaus had stolen a pair of Mom’s heels and was trying to run in them to show Ben and Diego the routine and just fell down an entire flight of stairs. His jaw was wired shut for months, but he never fell down in a pair of heels again.”_ _

__“That explains some things,” Dave said._ _

__“How?” Allison asked, head tilted to the side in obvious disbelief._ _

__“He won us a free USO-sponsored dinner in Saigon after borrowing a pair of GoGo Boots and performing his own version of _These Boots Were Made For Walking_.”_ _

__Allison leaned back, shoulders finally relaxing, and let out a bright peal of laughter, as if she surprised herself with it._ _

__“I can so see that,” Allison said. “I bet he did a little asshake at the end too.”_ _

__“Of course,” Dave said. “Where is he hiding?”_ _

__Klaus, god love him, was rarely quiet or inconspicuous unless he wanted to disappear._ _

__“He muttered something about the softer side of Sears and went running after Diego. He didn’t want you to wake up alone though, so he asked me to stay here.”_ _

__It was a kind thing to ask and a kind thing for Allison to do. He had the oddest feeling she was trying to balance a scale in her own head. Acts of kindness to pardon perceived crimes of the past._ _

__“Well, I do appreciate it,” Dave drawled in his best imitation of charming. “I’m still not sure this isn’t all some wacky dream or drug trip.”_ _

__“It’s all shockingly real,” Allison said. She looked down at her hands. “Shockingly real,” she repeated._ _

__Dave didn’t know what was going on in Allison’s life. He barely knew what was going on in his own. But he’d always thought of himself as a good listener, and for all that this woman before might’ve had the power to change the world with her words, she clearly wasn’t used to be listened to for anything other than her power and allure._ _

__“You know, we all fuck up sometimes,” he said. “And that doesn’t make us bad people. Or maybe we were bad people at one time, but we don’t have to stay that way.”_ _

__“Road to hell,” Allison muttered._ _

__“Doesn’t mean you should stop all good intentions,” Dave said. “I don’t know you, you don’t know me, but something’s obviously got a hold of your right now. You’ve been clutching that notebook like it’s the Holy Bible. I don’t know much, but I do know that instinct and intuition can save a life. What is your gut telling you right now?”_ _

__Allison let out a long, burdened breath. “That even if Vanya will hate me for it, something's not right with her new friend.”_ _

__“So what are you going to do about it?” he asked._ _

__“Get irrefutable proof,” Allison said. “Vanya’s a logical woman.”_ _

__“Emotions and logic don’t always go together,” Dave warned._ _

__Allison nodded, determined, and stood up. “I can’t just sit on my ass.” She patted his arm. “Thank you for this, even if I should be the one comforting you.”_ _

__She pulled a jacket off the back of the chair and draped it around her shoulders like the Hollywood starlet she was._ _

__“Klaus was right about you,” she said. “You are one of the good ones.”_ _

__She left him with a soft kiss to his cheek and the scent of her vanilla perfume on the air._ _

__************** _ _

__“You,” Five said, storming into the room with a pile of book in his hands and chalk dust rising off his shoulders. “We need to talk.”_ _

__Five didn’t deal in pleasantries, Dave had quickly learned, and made no qualms about shoving Dave’s water cup with is purple twisty straw to the side to place his mountain of books on the bedside table._ _

__“What’s your name again?” Five asked._ _

__“David Edward Cunningham,” he answered._ _

__“And you were born when?”_ _

__“February 11, 1945,” he said. “Want my rank and serial number too?”_ _

__Five flipped him off. “And where were you born?”_ _

__“McAdenville, New York,” he said. It was a small town on the outskirts of the county._ _

__“Hmm,” Five said as he took in all that information. “So, you father didn’t fight in World War II? Or were you the milkman’s baby?”_ _

__“After he’d been shot in the ass four times between Normandy and Bastogne, they finally sent him home early when he lost an eye in Foy thanks to a sniper,” Dave said._ _

__“Why does it always come back to glass eyes?” Five muttered. He flipped through a stack of papers in his hands. “Well, congratulations Dave from McAdenville, it looks like I don’t have to kill you.”_ _

__“Thanks,” he said, feeling anything but._ _

__Five looked up and gave him a horrifying smile. “You’re welcome.” He pointed to the books. “Those are some more recent history books. Read up if you want to stay around. If the world doesn’t end, of course.”_ _

__He stood up then, leaving as he entered, and Dave just looked after him in bewilderment._ _

__************** _ _

__There was an argument going on in the house. Five and Luther were yelling loud enough to wake the dead. Dave put aside his copy of _We Were Soldiers Once and Young_ to glance over at Grace._ _

__She didn’t seem bothered, sitting at his bedside, sewing up holes in a worn black sweater._ _

__“Should we do something about that?” he asked._ _

__Grace’s frozen smile wasn’t much of a reassurance. “Oh, it’s nice to have the house full again. It’s been so lonely and quiet with everyone gone.”_ _

__“They sound like they’re going to kill each other,” Dave said._ _

__Grace shook her head. “Boys will be boys,” she assured._ _

__One boy had the shoulders of Atlas and the other was possibly the deadliest manchild Dave had ever met. Boys will be boys could prove fatal in this case._ _

__“Grace,” Luther said, appearing at the door looking mostly fine. “Do we have any pots or pans or spare car parts we don’t need?”_ _

__Grace stood, her form still in perfect posture, and put the sweater to the side. “Let me go check the storage closet.”_ _

__Luther followed her, just give Dave a single acknowledged nod, before leaving him alone again._ _

__“Not my circus, not my actual monkeys,” Dave said aloud and returned to his book._ _

**************

__“Hello?” a soft, almost trembling, female voice called out._ _

__Dave woke up from his nap, alone and vulnerable and reached over to grab one of Grace’s knitting needles. It wasn’t much in the way of a weapon, Klaus hadn’t exactly left him with one, but it would do._ _

__“Hello?” he called out._ _

__“Who’s there?” the voice answered, louder this time._ _

__Dave didn’t know if it was friend or foe, and he currently wasn’t in any shape to crawl on the ground in stealth mode, so another tactic had to be used._ _

__“Marco!” he yelled._ _

__“Polo?” A very confused young woman said as she appeared in the doorway. She was small, looked even tinier in her oversized jacket and coat._ _

__Vanya. It could only be her. Dave finally understood what Klaus had meant when he joked that invisibility was her super power. Everything in her, from the hunched shoulders to the hesitant grip on the doorjamb to the downcast eyes said she wanted to disappear. Dave didn’t know her, didn’t know much about her, but in that moment he wanted to protect her from every single bad thing the world had in it._ _

__“Vanya?” he asked._ _

__She nodded. “I’m sorry, I don’t know who you are.”_ _

__He waved at her. “I’m Dave. I’m a friend of Klaus. I sort of unexpectedly dropped in from nowhere after taking a couple rounds to the chest.”_ _

__“Are you okay now?” she asked._ _

__He shrugged, then winced as the movement pulled on his stitches. “I’m getting there.”_ _

__She nodded and slowly walked into the room, her feet barely making a sound._ _

__“Is Allison here?” she asked as she carefully picked up Grace’s sweater and folded it, placing it on the desk behind him._ _

__“I haven’t seen her since this morning,” Dave said._ _

__She gripped the top of the chair by his bedside and looked around the room. “Do you know where the others are?”_ _

__He really didn’t and hated that he had to tell her as much. “Klaus and Diego left before I woke. Five and Luther were here, but left in a hurry. I’m not sure where Grace and Pogo are.”_ _

__She nodded again. “It’s just--I had an audition today. I wanted to tell Allison about it.”_ _

__“Violin, right?” he asked. “Klaus mentioned you played.”_ _

__Her eyes darted up in surprise at that. “He did?”_ _

__Dave smiled at her. “He did. Said you were pretty good.”_ _

__“He hasn’t heard me in years,” she said._ _

__“Well, then you must be even better now,” he said. He wanted to reach out to her, but you didn’t startle a deer and you didn’t move towards a frightened young woman when you were twice her size._ _

__“I should come back later,” she said and started to hurry from the room._ _

__“Vanya,” he called after her._ _

__She stopped and turned, uncertainty and caution clear._ _

__“Congratulations,” he said._ _

__Her answering smile was small, a gift in and of itself, and Dave swore the room got a little brighter. She ducked her head and left, parting with a small wave and disappeared in silence, gone as suddenly as she had came._ _

__************** _ _

__“The day I have had,” Klaus said as he made his grand entrance into Dave’s room. He dropped his coat to the floor, kicked his shoes off in wildly different directions, and tossed a heavy shopping bag on the bed._ _

__“You actually put in an honest day’s work?” Dave asked._ _

__“You don’t even know,” Klaus said as he crawled into bed. He greedily curled around Dave’s chest, careful to avoid his wound, but head still near Dave’s heart. “At least I got to use an ice cream truck as a battering ram.”_ _

__“I’m sure anything can be used as a battering ram if you try hard enough,” Dave said._ _

__“Ahh,” Klaus said, fingers dipping into the folds of Dave’s robe and drawing circles on his skin. “But they don’t often come with their own musical selections and a freezer full of tasty treats.”_ _

__Dave curled one of his hands around the back of Klaus’ neck, trying to work away the tension there._ _

__“I think you need a nap,” he said._ _

__“Hmm,” Klaus agreed. “But will you chase away all the ghosts in my sleep?”_ _

__“Every last one of them,” Dave promised._ _

__Klaus muttered something then, into Dave’s skin, though they both pretended he hadn’t said it. They knew. Maybe one day they could say it to each other without imminent death between them._ _

__************** _ _

__It was dark. Dave only had the moonlight to try and read the books Five had dumped by his side. The pile had grown significantly smaller after Ben had ordered him to pull out the ones he deemed ‘of actual relevance.’_ _

__Klaus was still asleep, body lax on the bed, snoring a little bit into Dave’s abdomen._ _

__It was then that Diego appeared, almost a shadow himself. Dave would’ve missed him if it wasn’t for the glint of light on the silver knife he twirled in his hands._ _

__“You're the only sibling I haven’t seen today,” Dave said._ _

__Diego didn’t say anything as he stood by the bed, watching the rise and fall of Klaus’ shoulders as he slept on._ _

__“I don’t know you,” he said. “I don’t know if I want to know you. I know him though. I know how much of a pain in the ass he can be. I know how many times he’s tried to kill himself, both on purpose and by pure accident. I know how much of a handful he can be. And if you know him, you know he will fuck up again. Over and over again.”_ _

__He moved behind the bed, turning on the desk lamp and then walking slowly back to the bed, each step deliberate._ _

__“I want to see your face as I tell you this. If you can’t handle him at his absolutely fucking worst, which I doubt you’ve even seen, then you need to leave now. You should probably leave for you own good. Because he’s going to relapse. He’ll probably steal your money. He’ll waltz into rehab and waltz out and promise you he won’t do it again. And then he will. So if that’s too much, you need to heal up and then get your ass out of here. Do you understand me?”_ _

__Dave nodded. Now wasn’t the time to tell Diego what he and Klaus had been through in the war._ _

__“If you stay with him, through this, and then leave for some bullshit reason, I will hunt you down. I will rip open that scar on your chest. I will cut out you heart and leave it for rats to feed on.” He tapped Dave’s chest with the blunt part of his knife. “Are we clear?”_ _

__“Crystal,” Dave said._ _

__“Good,” Diego replied. He strode out with a wave of his hand and a mumbled, “Sweet dreams.”_ _

__Dave let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. He’d had more than one shovel talk in his life. He’d never had anything like Diego Hargreeves._ _

__Not that it mattered, since Dave had no intentions of leaving Klaus. Ever. And the Universe or Time or Fate or whatever the hell was out there seemed to agree with him, letting him escape death and travel decades in the future to still be at Klaus’ side._ _

__Even if, according to Five, the world was ending. It didn’t mean they couldn’t dance in the ashes as the world burned, one last kiss before it all ended. There were worse ways to go. He’d seen them and caused them and almost died that way._ _

__“Not the sheep,” Klaus mumbled in a soft, almost Irish accent._ _

__Dave dug his fingers into Klaus’ curls and massaged his scalp. “Not the sheep,” Dave agreed._ _

__He picked up the book Ben had insisted he read next. Something about the cosmos that had made him smile in a way ghosts probably shouldn’t be able to do. Dave didn’t know if it had the answer he wanted, or needed, but if it made Ben happy, it was the least Dave could do for a dead man._ _

“It’s one of my favorites,” Ben said. 

__Dave didn’t know where Ben had been before, but he was happy to see him now._ _

__“I’m sure I’ll enjoy it,” he said._ _

__Ben nodded and picked up one of the other books._ _

__“How can you do that?” Dave asked. “Like, you don’t leave an impression on the chair, but you’re clearly sitting there, and I can see you holding a book and turning its pages, but does someone else just see a random book floating in the air?”_ _

__“I honestly don’t know,” Ben said. “It could be that I’m borrowing some of Klaus’ energy. His--whatever it is--calls to the dead, dying, and the stuck in-betweens. We probably could have called him The Necromancer instead of the Seance.”_ _

__“Maybe it has something to do with your--how did Klaus put it?” Dave asked. “Your inter-dimensional wiggly-worms? Is it a residual echo of your powers through all of space and time? In picking up a book are you crossing those dimensions and bringing it back to the one part of you may still be living in, even if your projection’s in this one?”_ _

__“Holy shit,” Ben said, his jaw dropped. “You’re smart.” He glanced at Klaus. “What the hell are you doing with him?”_ _

__Because he loved him--had from the moment he appeared out of nothing, as if dreams could come true. And he told Ben as much._ _

__“Smart with no taste,” Ben said. “Yeah, you’ll fit right in.”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much gratitude to ama in looking this over for me. All remaining mistakes are mine.


	4. Number One with a Bullet

Despite how dashing he looked in Klaus’ borrowed robe, Luther’s old briefs, and Diego’s socks, Dave needed his own clothes. Klaus was aware of this pressing matter by Ben constantly pointing it out whenever Klaus left Dave’s side, and the only reason he finally gave in was because he saw Diego getting ready to leave.

“No,” Diego said as Klaus pulled on his coat. “I have shit to do.”

“Your revenge kick, of course,” Klaus said patting Diego’s shoulder “I understand that but think of poor Dave. Sitting up there. With no clothes to his name. Healing in another man’s underwear.”

Diego huffed “Fine, but we’re only going to Goodwill and you’re staying in the car.”

“Diego,” Klaus said, wrapping an arm around his brother’s shoulders. “The man almost died. Surely we can at least find the softer side of Sears.”

“Walmart or Goodwill,” Diego said “Your choice.”

Either one was horrible, but at least Walmart would have more variety. 

“Walmart,” Klaus said. “And I’ll pay you back. I’m a little cash strapped until the lawyers finally hand out our inheritances. And you know darling Papa took over my royalty checks.”

“Because he didn’t want you to snort it all away,” Diego said.

Klaus was honestly offended. He hadn't snorted anything in years. It wasn’t worth the nosebleeds. And he'd basically been on a diet of pot and booze for ten months now. That was saintly for him.

“It's for the greater good, Diego,” Klaus said.

Diego rolled his eyes, but his shoulders had dropped and he didn't look ready to throw a punch or a knife.

“I'm only doing this because he doesn't need to catch a cold on top of a bullet wound.”

“You're a prince,” Klaus said. 

“Get in the fucking car,” Diego ordered, pointing to the door. 

“Diego!” Mom called from her alcove. “Is that the sort of language used in this house?”

“Sorry, Mom,” they both said.

Klaus danced away from Diego’s thrown punch. “I must have a word with our favorite Hollywood starlet, but then I’ll meet you outside.”

“You have two minutes,” Diego said. “Starting now.”

Klaus dashed down the stairs to Allison’s room. “How is the most gorgeous woman in the tri-state area, today?” he asked.

“What do you need, Klaus?” Allison asked as she flipped through one of her old diaries. 

“I need to go find the softer side of Sears with Diego. Purely for Dave’s benefit, of course. I just don’t want Dave to wake up alone. New place. New time. New life. It could put a whole swatch of grey on that gorgeous head, and while I wouldn’t mind to see Dave as the silver fox he will be, I’d like to enjoy his youth just a bit longer.”

Allison closed her eyes and shook her head, but there was a soft smile on her face.

“I’ll do it.” She gestured to the door. “You better run before Diego leaves you behind.”

He blew her a kiss and made to the car just as Diego turned the engine on. 

 

**************

 

There was a bag full of cheap, horribly common looking, jeans, khakis, t-shirts, and plaid button downs in the back seat. Along with the essentials like boxers and socks and a pair of sneakers. Diego had a punishing grip on the steering wheel as Klaus watched the city go by, slurping on his cherry Icee. Ben was in the back flipping through a magazine he’d made Klaus tell Diego to buy for him. 

“Were you there?” Diego asked.

“Pardon?” Klaus asked. “Was I where?”

“In the hotel room where Patch was shot,” he said. 

He didn’t think Diego was ever going to bring it up. He hadn’t so far. Diego was notorious for burying his shit deeper than anyone else in the family and only confession anything to mom. But apparently somewhere between dad’s death and now, he’d decided to let some of it out. It could only benefit him, even if Klaus was probably going to come out of it with a black eye. 

“She saved me,” Klaus said. “Heard me banging my head against the table and came to my rescue.”

“And you just left her there to get shot?” Diego asked.

Klaus was sorry about that, but he hadn’t been anywhere near his best mind, and the _flight_ part of his responses had been telling him to get the fuck out of there.

“I’d been tortured for over twenty-four hours,” Klaus said. He wrinkled his nose as he remembered the stale air of that shitty hotel room. “I was in the middle of a heavy detox on top of all that, since they wouldn’t even let me have one pill or one little sip. Forced sobriety and torture brought all the ghosts on. A room full of their dead.”

“I thought ghosts haunted places not my people,” Diego said.

“All people are haunted by someone or something,” Klaus said. “And of course some places are haunted. But Hazel and Cha-Cha have centuries of victims who died horrible deaths and turned into very angry ghosties. The room was full of them.” There were no marks left on his skin from that night, both the other day and ten months ago. “I am sorry, Diego. She was still alive when I escaped, had a gun trained on Hazel, but the bullets were flying and I did my best John McClane.”

“McClane?” Diego asked. A bark of laughter escaped his tense mouth. “You climbed through the air ducts.” He glanced over at him. “I guess that’s one good thing the junkie’s physique has brought you.”

“Not so skinny anymore,” Klaus said. War had given him even more ghosts and nightmares, but also muscles and some additional physical stamina. He watched the city go by through the window and still couldn’t understand why he was still here--back here--and a good person was gone.

“Diego, I really am sorry,” he said. 

“You always are,” Diego said. 

And he would know, more than the others. Always the one who got the call when Klaus was arrested. Always the one who would wire money through Western Union for his bail. Always the one to drop him off at rehab the rare times Klaus asked. Always the one to call back if Klaus called him first. 

“Yeah, but this time I mean it,” Klaus said. 

“Yeah,” Diego said, voice tight. “Well, I’m going to kill them.”

“I know,” Klaus said.

“And you can’t stop me,” Diego said.

“I’ll hold the door open for you,” Klaus said.

“You’ll stay in the car,” Diego said. “You’re the only person Dave knows in this world. Your ass is staying alive.” He quickly glanced at him before turning back to the road. “How did they even catch you anyway?”

Klaus only had vague memories of that night, but he remembered why he’d put his headphones on.

“Water is a conductor,” he said. “For--shit, I don’t know-- the spirit realms? Something about a mirrored surface I guess. I don’t know all the details, don’t really get it. When I’m submerged in water they call to me, I can hear their yells. They were yelling that night. So I put on my headphones. Took me in my bath towel. Wouldn’t even let me grab a pair of pants.”

“And what did they want?”

“Five,” Klaus said. “Of course, they wanted Five.”

“And what did you tell them?” Diego asked.

“Basically what they already knew. Just adding in the tidbit about Five’s glass eyeball obsession.”

“Which is why the blew up the lab,” Diego said. 

“After stomping on all my pills and eating my pot-laced chocolate,” Klaus said. “The assholes.”

“They just left you in the hotel room?” Diego asked. He shook his head. “Fucking idiots.”

“They’d duct taped me to the chair and gagged me, then shoved me in the closet before they left,” Klaus said. “I honestly don’t know why they didn’t just kill me then.”

Diego laughed. “Because of your dumb fucking luck.” He reached over to the glove compartment and pulled out a crumpled receipt. “They like donuts, yeah?”

“Hazel,” Klaus said. He could almost smell that sickly sweet scent when Hazel leaned in too close. “So, we’re going to Griddy’s?” he asked.

“We’re going to Griddy’s,” Diego agreed.

**************

 

After riding shotgun in the lowest speed chase Klaus had never hoped to participate in, they’d followed Hazel and Cha-Cha to a motel.

“They moved places,” Diego explained. “Still a dump.”

“Not everyone can afford the Ritz-Carlton,” Klaus said. “Papa would be aghast at such conditions.”

Diego laughed before sliding out of the car. Klaus leaned out of the window to try and see what he was doing.

“I think he’s putting a bomb on their car,” Klaus said.

“With what?” Ben asked. “Chemistry was never Diego’s strong suit. It’s probably just a tracker.”

“But we can see them,” Klaus said. “We know where they are.”

“For now,” Ben said, flipping through his magazine. “Diego’s not going to attack them in broad daylight. Probably.”

Diego came back and grabbed a case out of the backseat, hand going straight through Ben.

“Rude,” Ben yelled.

“You just totally grabbed our dead brother’s ghost junk,” Klaus said. 

“I hate you both,” Diego said as he started pulling out knives.

Ben kicked the back of Klaus’ seat. 

“Why do I have to be the voice of reason?” he asked.

“Because he can’t hear me, dickweed,” Ben said.

“Fine,” Klaus muttered. He turned to Diego. “I, and Ben, feel obligated to tell you that killing them won’t make you feel better.”

“Didn’t say it would,” Diego said as he slid his knives into their holsters. “But I’ll sleep like a baby once it’s done.”

“Yeah, okay,” Klaus said as he slurped down the last of his Iceee. He met Ben’s glare in the mirror and shrugged. He’d tried, okay. He did his best. 

A motel clerk approached the room, luckily leaving unscathed. Then Hazel appeared with an ice bucket looking not at all like a person should while getting free ice. 

“Stay in the car,” Diego ordered.

“But what if I have to pee?” Klaus asked.

Diego pointed to the closest tree. 

“Fair,” Klaus said. “But shouldn’t I get a chance at him? He tortured me for hours.”

“I have a plan,” Diego said as he slid out of the car.

“And I once shot a man in Reno just to watch him die,” Klaus called after him, but Diego was already too far into Dark Knight mode to hear him.

“You’re going after him, right?” Ben asked. 

“You go after him,” Klaus said.

Ben kicked the back of his seat again.

“How are you even doing that?” Klaus asked. 

“I’ve decided to become a poltergeist,” Ben said. He kicked the seat a third time. “Look, if you’re not going to follow Diego, can you at least get me a Bomb Pop?”

“You can’t even eat one,” Klaus said as he looked at the ice cream truck in front of them.

“But you can eat one for me,” Ben said. “Come on. It’s right there.”

Klaus didn’t know why an unmanned ice cream truck was in the hotel parking lot. He had his theories, perhaps a special version of afternoon delight, but for now Klaus was bored and hungry and the back doors of the van were just waiting there to be pried open. And if he didn’t get his dead brother his Bomb Pop he’d never hear the end of it.

Klaus slid out of the car and started to circle the truck when something bright caught his eye. The keys were right there, on the dash, in the unlocked truck, as if the owner assumed no one would ever steal an ice cream truck. 

Klaus looked back and forth between the truck and the stairs where Diego had vanished. He reached in through the open window and snagged the keys, and then ran after his idiot brother who should’ve known better. 

In no world should Klaus be the one making the most sense.

“What about my popsicle?” Ben asked, appearing at Klaus’ side as he started to run up the stairs.

“I’ll get you one later.”

“Fine,” Ben said. He looked up at the stairs. “Ready to go save Diego from himself?”

Klaus sighed and straightened his jacket. It was tough job, but no one else was here to do it. 

 

**************

 

Every single one of the tires on Diego’s Crown Vic were flat. Diego himself had bullet wounds in his arm and his leg. Their friendly neighborhood assassins had fled the scene after their attempted drive-by, and Klaus was standing in front of the still empty ice cream truck, Diego bleeding on his favorite Chuck Taylor’s, and having that sinking feeling mixed with adrenaline that meant he was about to do something illegal.

“For the record, we both know my license is suspended,” Klaus said.

“Well, I can’t drive,” Diego said. “And unless Ben has gone full on Swayze, it’s you. Need me to hot-write this thing?”

Klaus dug the keys out of his pocket and shook them. 

“Idiot deserves to get his truck stolen,” Diego said. “Help me up,” he said. 

Klaus pulled open the door, shoving Diego into the seat, and trying to ignore the string of curses when he bumped into the open bullet wounds.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Klaus said as he followed Diego into the truck. 

“Why aren’t you sitting down?” Diego yelled after Klaus disappeared into the back.

Klaus emerged with a Bomb Pop, a Choco Taco for himself, and an Orange Push-Up Pop for Diego.

“Snack time!” he said. He left the Bomb Pop on the dash, not saying anything at Diego’s whispered _what the fuck?_ as it disappeared into whatever void that was Ben.

He settled into the seat, put the keys in the ignition, briefly mixed up the gas and the brakes, and whooped as he drove out of the parking lot, with only hitting one dumpster. 

“So, we’re we going?” he asked.

“West,” Diego said looking at his tracking system.

“Got it,” Klaus said.

“Which is in the other direction,” Diego said.

“Got it,” Klaus repeated, completing a decent U-turn.

“I’m going to die,” Diego muttered.

“You can hang with Ben all the time then,” Klaus said.

“Passssss,” Ben said.

As they neared the highway Klaus reached for the music button. “We need some tunes!”

“We’re all going to die,” Diego said, voice drowned out by the musical sound of _It’s A Small World_.

 

**************

 

They were on a two-lane highway in the countryside, passing farm after farm, _Old McDonald_ playing above them in perfect timing, when Diego started asking questions.

“So,” he said. “Dave.”

Klaus would not jump out of a moving ice cream truck onto the road because road rash was hell, he liked this coat, and he was wearing his best pants. 

“Dave, yes,” Klaus said. “Now you’re suddenly interested in my love life?”

“Haven’t had one to be interested in before. This is the first time you’ve brought someone home, and since he bled all over my back seat…”

Klaus was never going to live that down. 

“What do you want to know?” Klaus asked.

“So, you traveled through time, fine, okay. With a dying man. I got that. But how the hell did you do it?”

“The time traveling briefcase that Five still hasn’t forgiven me for losing,” Klaus said.

“Right. But did you just have it with you at all times? Dragging it around in your pack? Was it right there next to you in the ditch when Dave got shot?” 

Klaus glanced up and exchanged a look with Ben who shrugged. “Might as well tell him the truth.”

Klaus sighed. It was something he didn’t like to talk about. He’d hidden it since they were kids because he didn’t want to be locked in the crypt. Again. He didn’t want even more electrodes on him while he slept. He didn’t want more bloodwork and endurance tests and all the other bullshit that came when dear old dad discovered a development in their powers. 

“Sometimes I can move things,” Klaus said.

Diego’s eyes bore into him. “Excuse me?”

Klaus gripped the steering wheel tighter as they bounced down the unevenly paved road.

“Look, sometimes, when I’m sober and going through some shit or in danger or whatthefuckever, I can move things. Not, like, huge shit. But little things like a book or a glass or a time-traveling briefcase.”

He looked over at Diego and his dropped jaw.

“You’re Carrie!” he yelled.

“I am not Carrie,” Klaus yelled back. “No pig’s blood. No killing everybody at the prom. No making doors shut.”

“You can and have done the door thing though,” Ben said.

Klaus hissed at the fraternal traitor. 

“You’ve got--you’re a telekinetic?” Diego asked. 

Klaus wouldn’t use that term. He had very little control over it, never bothered to train with it, didn’t know how to honestly, and had more than enough shit to handle with all the dead people around him.

“I wouldn’t call it that,” Klaus said. “It’s not an everyday thing. It’s not like conjuring.” 

“We’re talking about this later,” Diego said. 

Diego could try, but Klaus would do anything not to have that conversation. 

Over the hill and in the horizon was a large looming figure.

“Is that?” he asked.

“Luther,” Diego said, sitting up. “And Five?”

“What the hell are they doing out here?” Klaus asked. He could see Hazel and Cha-Cha’s blue car parked just past Luther. 

Diego reached over and cycled through the music until they settled back on _Ride of the Valkyries_.

“Gun it,” Diego ordered. 

“This is going to be fun,” Ben said. 

Klaus pressed his foot down on the gas as hard as it would go, which wasn’t far considering their current mode of transportation, taking his eyes off the road only once to wave to his brothers on the road side.

“Everyone say cheese!” he yelled as he aimed for the two master assassins who didn’t have the good sense to get the hell out of the road. 

And then something strange happened. Because Five was gone and Ben was confused, and as Klaus and Luther hurried with Diego between them to get to dad’s car before Hazel and Cha-Cha could regroup, none of them could find Five.

“It’s like time stopped,” Ben said. “Even I couldn’t move. I could see what was going on through the side mirror. Some lady and Five and then nothing and then, like, an explosion of sound.”

Klaus look over at Luther, hunched over the steering wheel and speeding back into the city. 

“His boss lady?” Klaus asked.

“Maybe,” Luther said. “Family meeting when we get home.”

“Yeah, veto,” Klaus said, Diego leaning against him panting in pain. “Diego’s bleeding. I need food, shower, and sleep. Allison will want to be brought up to date and we’ll need to call Vanya over.”

“We don’t need Vanya,” Luther said.

“If Five’s gone again, we need to tell Vanya,” Klaus said. 

“Veto,” Diego agreed. “We need time to make a plan.”

“Veto,” Ben said.

“That’s three against one,” Klaus said. “Veto wins.”

“Three?” Luther asked. He glanced at the empty seat next to him. “Ben?” he asked.

Ben waved, even though Luther couldn’t see it. 

Klaus turned his attention back to Diego. “Now who’s bleeding all over the backseat?” he asked.

“Fuck you,” Diego said. “Still less of a mess than your boyfriend left.”

“The benefit of not having a fatal chest wound,” Ben said. “So who gets the honor of telling Allison we lost Five?”

A shudder rocked Klaus’ frame at the very idea. Allison could be sweet as sugar, but she remained at the top of his list of People Never To Piss Off On Purpose.

“What’s the matter with you?” Diego asked. “Caught a chill?”

“Ben just asked who gets to tell Allison we lost Five again,” he explained.

Diego’s face went pale. “No dibs!” he yelled before anyone else could.

“No dibs,” Klaus and Ben yelled at the same time. 

Luther’s shoulders sagged. “I’m guessing it’s me?”

Klaus reached forward and patted his massive arm. “Your mission, Number One, should you choose to accept it.”

 

***************

 

It was evening by the time they returned, and once they’d stitched Diego up in the kitchen, Klaus eagerly climbed the stairs to Dave. Dave who didn’t smell like country roads or gun fire or blood. Dave who was starting to get his color back, sitting up, and flipping through a book. Dave who was _here_ and _alive_ and made Klaus’ heart jump in the best of ways. 

“The day I have had,” Klaus declared as he walked into the room, tossing his coat to the side and kicking off his shoes.

“You actually put in an honest day’s work?” Dave asked with that brilliant smile on his face. 

Klaus eagerly crawled into his bed, careful not to get too close to his stitches. There was his heart, beating steady and true.

He told Dave about the day’s adventure, fatigue weighing on him with every word, but his body going pliant. It was safe here, in this bed, with Dave at his back, the only way he’d been able to sleep in Vietnam. 

He loved this man. Klaus hadn’t known what love was before. Infatuation? Of course. Sexual attraction? Obviously. But this? This was something so much more.

The one thing he truly feared on this earthly plane was fucking this up beyond repair. He knew himself. He knew he’d fuck it up somehow, but hopefully not to the point of irreparable damage. He wanted to be better--not _for_ Dave but _because_ of him. And no little apocalypse was going to get in his way.

“Will you stay with me even as the world burns?” Klaus asked.

“Come here,” Dave said, voice deep and urgent.

Klaus sat up, carefully straddling Dave’s body, arms on either side of his shoulders, dog tags hanging down between them as he looked into Dave’s eyes.

Dave’s hands were warm as they cupped Klaus’ cheeks. “I’m not going anywhere. Ever.”

Klaus smiled. “I got you, babe,” he murmured as he leaned down for a long overdue and well-earned kiss.

Klaus was going anywhere either and god help anyone or anything who tried to get in their way.


	5. Take One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reminder that this fic/Dave's background in this fic was posted before we were told about his last name/background. That's why his last name is Cunningham here.

It wasn’t often Klaus slept through the night--or during the night at all. He didn’t know if there was some truth to the Witching Hour lore, but once the clock swung closer to dawn, the ghosts usually got quieter. Maybe it was just him. Maybe because it was the smallest tendrils of light meant the crypt door was finally opening. Maybe it was his body basking in all that Vitamin D and Ultraviolet B that his pasty ass so rarely got. Either way, sleep came easier during the daylight and night time usually was the right time for Klaus to be with whoever he loved. So to speak.

His siblings, outside of Diego, apparently stuck to more normal 9 to 5 schedules, which in and of itself made no sense. Allison and Vanya were both involved in the Arts. Luther had been living on the moon. Ben could fuck off and re-appear at his whims and Five--

\--Five had disappeared again.

“Shit,” Klaus cursed. He slipped from the attic windowsill where the first rays of light were turning the sky from purple to pink. It was beautiful, even with the tableau broken by skyscrapers and the loud voices of the street vendors already starting to sell their wares down at the market. 

“I thought you’d be with Dave,” Diego said.

Klaus turned around and studied his brother’s bruised and battered bones. Diego’s arm was in a sling at Pogo’s insistence, and he kept shuffling his feet, probably feeling the effects of his leg wound. Luckily that one had just been a bullet graze and a sprained ankle from falling out of the ice cream truck. The one in his arm had been a through-and-through. Klaus knew by now Diego had so many scars from bullets and knives and various other random weaponry, that he’d lost count. But it’d been years since Klaus was there to see it in person.

“You could’ve gotten killed yesterday,” he said.

“So could you,” Diego replied. “But we’re still here.”

They were and yet even that felt temporary. “I hate to say this, Diego, but I don’t think your friend--”

“Don’t say her name,” Diego warned.

“--would want you to die avenging her,” Klaus spoke over him. “I didn’t know her well, I know. She just didn’t seem the type.”

“She wasn’t,” Diego said. “And if she is haunting my ass, I’m sure she’s cursing my every step.” Diego held up a hand. “And I don’t want to know if she is. I don’t. If you see her, never tell me. I need her to be at peace.”

There was already a hazy shade of someone forming behind Diego, but Klaus just nodded and tried to ignore the ever growing form in the room. 

“So you left Dave alone to have a smoke up here?” Diego asked. 

“I left Ben with him,” Klaus said. He laughed. “I mean, he’s the only one other than me who can talk to Ben. Maybe they’ll become the bestest of friends.”

“That’s not the reason you’re up here,” Diego said. “I know you, Klaus. I see the tremors in your hands.”

There was an entire stash of pills in Klaus’ room calling to him as he started to think this morning. Over and over and over the thoughts had run around in his head and he didn’t like the conclusions that he’d reached. There were so few people who truly trusted in this world and he hated that he was doubting one of them.

“Dave’s healing faster than he should,” he said.

Diego frowned. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

He didn’t get it. “It’s been days, Diego. He was shot in the chest. An artery was hit. Yeah, we got some blood from you, but was that all? Was that all Pogo used?”

“None of us have super healing as an ability,” Diego said.

“That we know of,” Klaus pointed out. “Ben would come out of his transformations covered in the blood of others, but what if it was his own too? What if he did having healing powers even he didn’t know of? What if some of that was still lying around in one of Papa’s precious vaults somewhere?”

“Then you’ve got to ask Pogo. Or find Dad’s notebook.”

That fucking notebook. Out of all the things Klaus had lost in the pursuit of a high and some food, that fucking notebook would haunt him until the end of days. 

“You’re not going to find answers here,” Diego said as he gestured around the old attic. “And you sure as hell won’t find them if you’re high as a kite. So just make sure Dave’s not turning into some gorilla mutant and I think everything will be fine.”

Klaus nodded. “Yes, yes, of course. Only one gorilla mutant allowed per family.”

Klaus didn’t relish questioning Pogo about the life-saving tactics he and Mom had used. He didn’t want to appear ungrateful for such a gift, but if something was happening to Dave, he needed to know. The healing wasn’t the sort of fast that one would expect from super powers, but it was doing in days what should take months. Pogo had to know Klaus would notice. Maybe he hoped he wouldn’t.

“I’m going to go grab some breakfast,” Diego said. “You want something?”

“Pancakes?” Klaus asked.

“Bagels,” Diego said.

“Boring,” Klaus muttered as he walked towards the stairs. “Sesame, please!” he yelled as he started to his descent.

“You’ll get plain and like it,” Diego yelled back.

Boring. But he wasn’t paying, so he’d take it.

 

*************

 

“This is the worst idea you’ve had all week,” Allison said. She had one of Dave’s arms around her shoulders, helping Klaus bear Dave’s weight as they slowly progressed down the stairs.

“The week’s not over,” Klaus said.

“And I’m sure he’s done one hundred stupider things in the last day alone,” Dave huffed out between heavy breaths. 

“And this wasn’t my idea,” Klaus added.

It had been Pogo’s idea to move Dave to the living room. He’d be on the ground floor if they had to make a quick exit, since one never knew when the apocalypse would come calling. Luther could’ve easily carried Dave down, but he’d fucked off somewhere early this morning. Klaus didn’t have many options with Diego healing from two bullet wounds, Ben dead, Mom unable to carry a grown man, and Pogo the same. Vanya would’ve been squashed like a bug. So that left Klaus, Allison, and Dave in the most awkward shuffle the city had ever seen.

“At least there will be food at the end,” Klaus muttered. 

Dave’s reply was a hissing laugh that let Klaus know he’d heard him. It was something Dave had told the boys back when they were in the shit. _We’ll get through this boys. At least there will be food at the end._ Objectively all that food had been horrible, but it tasted damn good when you looked around and still saw so many of your friends still breathing. 

They collectively let out a deep breath when they reached the foyer..

“Watch your feet,” Allison warned. “There’s still glass everywhere.”

Dave looked at the mess of antique chandelier and broken glass that still hadn’t been cleaned up. 

“What the hell happened?” Dave asked. 

“They dropped a chandelier on Luther,” Allison said as if she was discussing the weather.

Klaus tried not to laugh at the look on Dave’s face. He kissed his cheek instead.

“You’re so sweet,” Klaus cooed.

“They dropped a chandelier on him?” Dave asked.

Allison shrugged. “He got up and got better.”

“They dropped a chandelier on him,” Dave repeated.

“He okay?” Allison asked.

Klaus grinned. “He’s just perfect.” Dave still looked a little wide-eyed and winded. “Maybe we should sit him down.”

Dave didn’t look all that much better as he took in the wide ceilings and all the mounted dead animal heads of the living room. Allison gestured to the bar and while Klaus was all for day drinking, even he had to admit it was a little early for the hard stuff.

“I never would have pegged you for as a _It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere_ person, Sis.”

“Get him a bottle of water, Klaus,” Allison said as she built a small fence of throw pillows around Dave. 

“This is your living room?” Dave asked.

“Yeah,” Klaus said as he handed him cold water in the finest of Papa’s champagne flutes. “Isn’t it homey?”

There were still toppled tables and gouges in the wall from the fight that seemed so long ago to Klaus but was only days for everyone else. 

“Your dad was certainly a collector,” Dave mumbled into his glass.

“He did so love visiting other countries and robbing them of their national treasures,” Klaus said. He gestured to himself and Allison. “Children included. Traveled the world to collect us. He must have invoices of what he paid. Who do you think cost the most?”

Allison rolled her eyes. “Luther,” she said. She walked past Klaus and headed behind the bar. “Or Ben.”

“Definitely me,” Ben agreed.

“Wait,” Dave said, waving a hand in the air for them to stop talking. “He _bought_ you? Who does that?” Dave asked. 

“Dad,” Allison, Klaus, and Ben answered in unison. 

“Not that he ever let us call him ‘dad.’ That was one sure way to piss him off,” Ben said. “So Klaus learned the words for father in every language he could think of.”

Klaus grinned at one of the finer moments of his childhood. “Good times.”

Dave palmed his forehead. “You poor fucking souls,” he muttered. 

Allison look concerned. “Did you not tell him all of this?”

Klaus shrugged. “I mean, there _was_ a war to fight, and in our down time the last thing I wanted to explain was all of _this_. He knew I was adopted, came from a big family, and had an asshole for a father, but the rest? Didn’t matter.”

“It matters,” Dave said. He looked so worried. “How are all of you not..” his voice trailed off.

“We are,” Klaus said. He didn’t need Dave to finish that sentence, he could guess how it ended. “We just hide it well, but we’re all a little broken on the inside. A little land of misfit toys. Some of us just prettier than others.” He slotted into the spot on the couch between Ben’s incorporeal ass and Dave’s fortress of throw pillows. “Lucky you,” he said, resting his head on Dave’s shoulder.

“Lucky me,” Dave repeated, but it didn’t sound like he was upset. 

“I’ve got bagels,” Diego said, stomping into the room and putting a huge bag down on the bar. “Cream cheese too.” He glanced at the couch and tilted his head at Dave’s obvious despair. “What’s wrong with him? Finally saw Klaus without the make-up?”

“I’m fucking gorgeous always,” Klaus protested. 

“Dave’s finding out even more about the family,” Allison said as she dug out a stack of napkins and food. 

Diego’s laugh was not kind, nor were his eyes, but he still brought a pre-cut bagel with plain cream cheese over to Dave.

“Eat up, Army boy.”

“That’s Sergeant Cunningham to you,” Dave quipped, but he took the food. 

“Has anyone seen Diego?” Luther asked, barging into the room with a tray full of coffees. “Oh. You’re all here.” He nodded to Dave. “And Dave. Well. Good. Family meeting?”

It’s not like they had much of a choice. Luther was blocking the main exit.

*************

The world was ending in three days. Five had talked a lot about the apocalypse. He had never mentioned the exact day, at least not that Klaus remembered. And now they had a timeline. And it was horrifying.

“You brother lived on the moon? For four years?” Dave asked.

Klaus supposed there were some other things to focus on right now other than imminent death. 

“The moon landing hadn’t happened yet before he almost died in his original timeline,” Ben said.

Klaus turned to Dave in surprise. “Oh shit, really?”

Dave shook his head.

“He never paid attention in history class,” Ben said. “Except for the Lord Byron class.”

“I would’ve made a great Romantic,” Klaus said.

“You would’ve died in an opium den,” Dave said.

Klaus couldn’t argue with that one. 

Diego had gone on his revenge kick, Allison was trying to get a flight back to California, Luther was up in Herr Hargreeve’s office trying to find anything, Five was still gone, Vanya had ripped them all a new one and stormed off, and Klaus was still in the living room with Dave who looked entirely shell-shocked.

“I’m sorry I brought you back here for only five days of living,” Klaus said. 

Dave used the arm of the couch to push himself up. He looked like he wanted to pace the room and Klaus would gladly help him do so, but he also looked like he needed to be left alone for a good hour.

It was a lot to throw at anybody at once. For someone from fifty years in the past? Klaus couldn’t even imagine what was going on in Dave’s head. 

“I’ll just,” Klaus said, gesturing to the entranceway.

“Stay,” Dave barked. In that moment he wasn’t Klaus’ sweet, kind Dave. He was Sgt. Cunningham, Airborne’s finest, with that steely look in his eye that meant shit was getting done STAT bc everything had gone FUBAR and someone had to fix it.

That look had always made Klaus want to drop to his knees, fuck whoever else was around them.

“Holy shit,” Ben said in awe. He’d never seen Dave in work mode.

“I know, right,” Klaus said.

Dave shook his head at them then stood up straight, shoulders back, and head raised high.

“We know when the world is going to end. We’re not just going to sit on our asses and let it happen,” Dave said.

“I’d be glad to greet the end of days on my back, darling,” Klaus said. “But you’re still not up for it.”

“Klaus,” Dave warned even as he laughed. 

It was something Klaus had heard often in the ten months they knew each other. Dave trying to be the competent leader he was while also always overindulging Klaus.

“Luther’s our leader,” Klaus said. “He makes the plans.”

“Well, with all due respect to your brother, his current plan is useless. The clock is ticking. Our intel is nothing, other than that everyone died the last time. I don’t think it’s wise to waste time combing through four years of research,” Dave said.

“I don’t disagree,” Klaus said. “But what can we do? How can we do anything?”

“We can’t do nothing,” Dave said.

And even Klaus had to agree with that, no matter how much everything in him wanted to run and hide right now, dig out his last stash, take it all, and leave this world before it collapsed upon itself. 

He couldn’t leave Dave. And Dave would always go down swinging. 

Klaus turned to Ben. “I’m open to suggestions.”

Ben looked sick, if a ghost could look sick. “I think we need to work on that thing you don’t like to talk about.”

Klaus’ hands shook as he thought about testing his powers again. In this house. With that bastard’s legacy dripping from every single corner.

“I’m not going back into the fucking crypt,” Klaus said. He closed his eyes and was immediately that scared kid again, curled up in the corner, cold stone all around him.

“Honey, no, of course not,” Dave said. “You’re never going back in there.”

Klaus opened his eyes to find Dave kneeling before him, Ben helping to hold him up somehow. These were the two people who believed in him, no matter what, no matter how much he’d fucked up. And they only had three days left together. Klaus was going to let them down, there was too much hope in both of their eyes and Klaus never had been or would be anyone’s hero. 

But he could try.

He could go down swinging too.

“Okay,” he said. Shaking his hands out. “Let’s try and move some shit with my mind.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapter this time! I didn't like what I originally had and decided to re-do everything, and since this day gets its own do-over in the series, the next chapter will be much more detailed.


	6. Take Two (Dave Interlude)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of the dialogue comes directly from the episode 'The Day That Wasn't.' It's from when Vanya confronts her siblings.

The Cunningham household had never witnessed many arguments. Disagreements? Of course, that was only natural. His parents were always fair and civil in their discussions. Yelling usually only happened out of worry. The moments when his parents were truly angry with him were so rare they stuck out clearly in his memory. In general it was a home full of a steady sort of quiet.

The Hargreeves? Yelled. A lot. Loudly. Verbal fights, physical fights, object throwing, talking over each other, screaming at each other, all mixed together in a vibrant barrel full of dysfunction. He’d only been here for a handful of days and had seen and heard it all. Of course with that many different personalities and all sorts of emotional damage, Dave supposed it wasn’t much of surprise. They were raised to see each other as competitors as much as siblings.

He hoped Klaus _could_ conjure his legal father again so Dave could punch that bastard in the face. Repeatedly. Even if there wasn’t a way to make a ghost feel pain, it would make Dave feel better and he was certain most of the Hargreeves would appreciate the sentiment.

So Dave wasn’t entirely surprised by the group trying to outspeak each other, but it still left him awkwardly curled up in his throw pillow prison, slowly eating a bagel, while Luther tried to explain to three of his very pissed off siblings that the world was, in fact, ending in three days and they had to try and save it. Again. Apparently they died the last time. Or this time. Or another time that had yet to happen.

“Dude,” Ben said as he sat beside him, grin huge on his face from just scaring the shit out of Klaus by knocking an umbrella over, “you look like your head's about to explode.”

“You really are taking that poltergeist thing to heart,” Dave said.

Ben shrugged. “It’s only little things. I’ve always been able to do that.” He gripped Dave’s shoulder. “Seriously though. You look like a jackhammer is going off in your head.”

“Kind of feels like it,” Dave said. He would’ve asked for an aspirin but, recalling Doc Wilson’s many rants, he needed to avoid even the weakest of blood thinners. And he’d learned the hard way _not_ to ask Klaus for anything even vaguely drug related. He still didn’t remember his last trip to Saigon, even though he came back from it with a tattoo of a flower on his ass.

“We had enforced quiet time as kids,” Ben said. “Play time was once a week for half an hour. We weren’t allowed to speak during meals. We were to be seen and not heard. I think that’s why they’re so loud now. Sometimes I think they all just make noise for the sound of it.”

Dave felt the tick in his jaw that usually came before he got in brawl. “I really want to kill your father. Again.”

“I’ll help you steal a time machine if we can,” Ben offered. 

They were both sat apart from the others, Dave a living, breathing forgotten footnote as Luther started to shrink under the furious gazes of the other three. Punches or knives had yet to be thrown, but that could change any second. Honestly, the grip Allison had on her coffee cup could only be called lethal. Dave wouldn’t be surprised if that thing went flying in the next three minutes.

“Five bucks says Allison sends that cup flying,” Dave said.

“You don’t have five bucks,” Ben said. He looked at each of his siblings. “Ten says Diego throws a knife first.”

Dave held out his hand. “Deal.”

“Sucker,” Ben said just as one of Diego’s knives went flying past them into the wall.

“Shit,” Dave muttered, mentally adding that total to what he already owed Ben in lost bets.

“Hey, the world’s ending, at least you won’t have to pay up,” Ben said.

It had been a joke, at least Dave thought, the first few times Klaus has said it. And it was ridiculous. Impossible. Of course the world was supposed to end, to every season and all that, but Dave wasn’t supposed to be here for that. It was supposed to be centuries in the future with flying cars and people living on the moon or mars or some shit. 

Yet here he was, back from the almost dead, fifty years in the future, three days until the end of the world. 

It took all of Dave’s considerable self-control not to burst out into incredulous laughter.

“Uh-oh, Spaghettios,” Ben sang as his eyes locked onto to something in the upper gallery.

Dave turned and saw Vanya there with a strange man behind her. She didn’t look as small today, her posture just a little prouder, but there was still an obvious hestiance to her steps.

Dave cut his eyes to Ben who was shivering. “Are you okay?”

“Bad vibes,” Ben said. His eyes widened and turned to Klaus whose hands were also starting to shake. 

Dave turned back to the stranger and almost puked at the vague form floating behind him. It was an older man, skull caved in, mouth opened in a silent scream.

“Shit,” Dave cursed. 

“I’ll get him to go,” Ben said, disappearing and then re-appearing behind Vanya and her friend

Klaus still hadn’t seen them yet, and Dave was wondering why he could even see the vague outline of a ghost, but that was a question for another time. For now he hauled himself up to block Klaus’ eyeline to the upper hallway. It probably didn’t matter, Dave could see the raised goosebumps on Klaus’ flesh, but if he could distract him long enough, maybe the ghost wouldn’t manifest.

“You’ve mounted an escape, I see,” Klaus greeted him. He swung his arm over Dave’s shoulder. “Coffee?”

“Sure,” Dave said. He made a face at the first sip of Klaus’ drink. “What in the hell is this? This isn’t coffee.”

“This is what it tastes like when it isn’t instant,” Klaus explained. “Still better than same Ham & Motherfuckers.”

Dave did not miss those thrice damned MCIs.

“Klaus, want to pay attention here?” Luther asked.

Not in the least, Dave thought.

“Not in the least,” Klaus said. 

Dave laughed into Klaus’ hair and let himself lean there for just a bit before straightening up.

“You okay?” Klaus asked.

“Later,” Dave said, mindful of the eyes on them.

“Hey,” Vanya’s soft voice resonated behind them. Dave was relieved to see the ghostly figure gone, but Ben still hadn’t re-appeared.

“What’s going on?” she asked, while her friend’s eyes were wide, taking in everything around them.

Allison was the first to speak, spine and shoulders taut with tension. “It’s...it’s a family matter,” she said. 

Dave remembered Allison from yesterday. Determined. And mistrustful of Vanya’s new friend. And yet here she was, trying to do her best to protect Vanya’s feelings and protect the family. Dave had only known her for days, but he could tell that Alison was constantly trying to balance scales in her life. Road to hell and good intentions indeed.

“A family matter,” Vanya said, cold anger clear in her voice and body. “So of course you couldn’t bother to include me.”

Dave didn’t think that was fair. They’d all been in this room when Allison called Vanya’s apartment this morning to no answer. After that, Luther went on with the meeting. 

“No,” Luther said holding his hand out. “It’s not like that we tried to call.”

“Please, don’t let me interrupt,” Vanya said, turning to leave. 

“Vanya,” Allison said, chasing after her. “Wait. I’ll fill you in later when we’re alone.”

“Please, don’t bother,” Vanya said. “You call it a family meeting and yet he’s here.”

Dave also didn’t think _that_ was fair considering he didn’t ask to be here. “In my defense, I can’t handle stairs right now and they dropped me on the couch.” He reached over to the tray of unclaimed foods. “Can we offer you bagels? Coffee?”

“Food in this trying time?” Klaus asked as Diego laughed from behind the bar.

Vanya’s wasn’t having any of it. She hadn’t heard a thing they’d said since _family matter_ and it made Dave recall, once again, Klaus’ joke about her power of invisibility. She couldn’t have known they tried to call her. She couldn’t have known the world was ending in three days. All she knew was that her siblings had left her out again.

She didn’t even know Five was gone.

Allison tried her best, but Vanya had stormed out, and Luther was in mission mode.

“I should’ve gone after her,” Allison said as she walked back over to the bar.

Luther was rambling something about the moon and Dave had to stop him. “Wait, did you say you lived on the moon?”

“Yes,” Luther said, like that was a normal thing to say. To anybody. Ever.

“You sleep with a man who can commune with the dead and that’s what’s got you?” Diego laughed at him. “Priorities man.” He grabbed his coat. “Speaking of which, I’m out of here. Clock’s ticking and I’ve got to go after Hazel and Cha-Cha.”

“You lived on the moon?” Dave asked again as he waved good-bye to Diego.

“Yes, for four years,” Luther said. “Can we get back to the point? Diego, where are you going?”

***************

In times of stress, Dave defaulted to training. It was easy--mindless. As a kid it was his Boy Scouts training. As a teenager, he just started reciting baseball stats in his head. And in war? It was everything he’d been told about mission success or failures. How to assemble a gun. Anything that required nothing of him but repetition. 

The world ending had become a real tangible horror as they day had progressed. Allison was trying to fly back home to her daughter. Diego was determined to kill two master assassins or die trying. Luther had even given up on his research, wandering through the house with a broken look on his face when he realized his father hadn’t given him a mission so much as exiled him as far away as possible.

And Klaus had that look in his eyes and that twitch to his fingers that meant he wanted to drink all the liquor and pop every pill he could get his hands on.

“I really don’t think I can do this,” Klaus said. 

They’d been trying for three straight hours to use Klaus’ other powers. It’d been frustrating for everyone involved, most of all Klaus, who looked more and more defeated each time he tried and failed.

“I’m sorry I can’t do this for you,” Klaus said. 

And then there were the times when training and mission planning could take a fucking hike.

“Honey,” Dave said, taking Klaus’ hands in his own. “You can do this. You have done this. And I know you will do it again.” He traced the words tattooed on Klaus’ palms and looked up into those sad eyes and that beautiful face without its brilliant smile. “You’re not letting me down. I’m not disappointed in you.”

“I’m disappointed in me,” Klaus said. “Maybe I should’ve listened to the old man.”

“Your father was a fucking asshole,” Dave said. “You don’t put a value on what your children can do for you. You raise them and love them and hope for the best. You teach them, of course, you do, but you don’t do what he did.”

Klaus had moved objects before. Usually only in times of extreme stress when he wasn’t _thinking_ about it. Maybe that was the key.

“Come here,” Dave said, tugging Klaus closer. “Just rest your eyes for a minute. Take a deep breath. Clear your head.”

Klaus did all that, his forehead against Dave’s own, that gorgeous smile once again lighting up the room.

“You smell good,” Klaus said. “Like me.”

Dave smiled at that and let his fingers lingers on Klaus wrists. 

“Hey, babe?” he asked.

“Hmm,” Klaus said.

“Can you get me some water?” Dave asked.

“Comfy,” Klaus complained. He opened his eyes though and straightened up. “I guess I can do it for--holy shit.”

It was only Dave’s quick reflexes that caught the bottle of water before it hit the floor. He pressed a kiss to Klaus’ stunned lips and laughed.

“So, now if we could just do that when you’re consciously concentrating on an object.” 

“How did I?” Klaus looked around. “Ben? Did you do that?”

“Dude, I’ve been over here the entire time,” Ben said from his place on the other side of the room. “Dave asked for water and you basically conjured it. Maybe you have ghosts servants, but I didn’t see any.”

Dave kissed Klaus again. “I’m so proud of you.” Klaus still looked too shocked to do much else than gape. “I think that’s enough for now. We should both eat something and rest.”

Klaus nodded and stood in a daze. “I’ll go ask Mom to make something,” he said.

Ben stayed in his place until Klaus left, then he appeared next to Dave.

“That was clever,” he said.

“It’s a start at least,” Dave said. 

“Well, we have another problem,” Ben said.

“Bigger than the world ending?” Dave asked.

Ben shrugged. “I don’t know. More pressing? Vanya’s creepy friend stole an action figure of our father. Like, reached right into the display case and took it.”

“Why would he do that?” Dave asked.

“Fanboy, possibly,” Ben said. “That doesn’t bode well for Vanya. Someone using her just to get to the family. Asshole.”

Allison was getting ready to leave and she was the only one among them who knew even a little about Vanya’s friend.

“You need to find Allison,” Dave said.

“And what?” Ben asked. “Wave at her? Moonwalk in front of her? Knock her coffee cup over? She can’t hear or see me.”

Right. Because Ben was a ghost and Dave kept forgetting that. 

“Well, then we’re just going to have to wait here until she gets back.”

“Vanya’s not going to listen to her,” Ben said. “Not after this morning.”

“Maybe she will if we can prove her friend stole the figure.” Dave’s looked at the security cameras in the corners. “Those things still work? Klaus said something about surveillance?”

Ben shrugged. “Pogo would know. You’d have to ask him.”

**************

“You can see ghosts now?” Klaus asked.

They were all hovered around Old Man Hargreeve’s bank of security monitors eating pizza and trying to find irrefutable proof to give Vanya. Granted, it would require her coming back to the house first, but one step at a time.

“No,” Dave said, a hand pressed to his chest. Those fucking stairs. Why were there so many stairs in this house? “I’ve never been able to and the only ghost I’ve ever spoken to is Ben.”

“That you know of,” Ben said.

“I think,” Dave said, ignoring Ben, “that when you pulled a mostly dead me through time, keeping me alive by the mere force of your own will, I think it tied us together somehow. I think I just get echoes of things.”

“Then explain Ben,” Klaus said, using his slice of pizza to gesture and getting grease over at least half the monitors.

“Ben is so deeply connected to you,” Dave said, trying in vain to wipe up the mess under Pogo’s disapproving eyes. “Or maybe it was the almost dead thing. Either way I’m almost certain the Ben thing is unique.”

“I am very special,” Ben agreed.

“What the fuck is that?” Klaus asked.

They’d finally traced Vanya and the creep to the hallway. Even on film, a vague outline of a ghost could be seen. 

“Yeah the thieving asshole arrived with company,” Ben said. “I chased him away.”

“Normal people aren’t haunted by murdered souls,” Klaus said. He put his hand over Dave’s and stopped the tape. “We need to call Vanya. Now.”

The last time Dave saw Klaus this serious, it was seconds before their mortar unit turned into pink mist. Dave didn’t understand the ghost thing. He didn’t understand the rules for who and what became ghosts, why Klaus could conjure some and not others, but he trusted Klaus. And he especially trusted Klaus when he looked like this, not one trace of humor in him.

“What if she’s not home?” Ben asked.

“Then we need to find her,” Klaus said. He walked over to the window and looked down at the street. “Diego’s car is still here. I’ll get him.”

“Find Allison too,” Dave said. 

“Why?” Klaus asked.

“Because from what I’ve seen, Allison at least tried to make an effort with Vanya. Even if Vanya is pissed off at all of you, that’s still her sister--her only sister. And Allison knows something about that asshole with her, or suspects it at least. I know she’s trying to fly out, but maybe she can delay her flight a day for this.”

Klaus nodded. He leaned down and gave Dave a deep, breath-stealing kiss.

“Stay safe,” Klaus said and then ran out the door.

 

***************

And then something strange happened. Dave could feel a split in his memories. Deja Vu. He checked the plastic watch with Mickey Mouse on it that Klaus had bought him. Wednesday. 8:14 in the morning. He swore he’d already been here.

At 8:15 Five appeared out of thin air, covered in dust and plaster, clutching a briefcase, and grabbing Allison’s coffee like it was a normal morning. 

Dave was thrown back on one of the couches, Klaus hovering over him, and so unbelievably confused. 

“Time,” Ben said, leaning over them. “It’s a hell of a thing.”

“What in the fuck just happened?” Diego asked.

Dave would like to know that too, greatly, in detail.

Five finished his coffee and they all listened as he spoke.

Apparently the fate of the world rested on a Harold Jenkins.

"Who the hell is Harold Jenkins?" Diego asked

Yet another thing Dave would like to know, greatly, in detail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want a mishmash of fandom reblogs, or to see some bits and pieces of other TUA WIPs on my to-do list, come talk to me on [tumblr](http://antiquecompass.tumblr.com/).


	7. Take Three

Klaus knew there were important things weighing on all their minds; end of the world as they knew it and all that etc etc ad nauseum. Klaus’ concerns were on a far more personal and tangible level. Mainly Dave and Ben insisting this day, this time, had already happened.

“He’s a ghost and you’re terribly confused,” Klaus tried.

Dave shook his head, pacing the length of the living room, using all the decorative chairs and tables as handholds. It certainly wasn’t as powerful as watching Dave pace through various parts of the jungle, but his ass still looked good in those jeans. Even if he was talking nonsense.

“Five wasn’t here, that’s new, that changed things,” Dave said.

“I think so too,” Ben agreed. 

“Diego went out on his hunt, Luther went to research the _moon_ , and Allison was trying to get back to her daughter. And you,” he paused there and smiled at Klaus. “You were starting to discover more of your powers.”

A sweet thing to say, but Klaus knew his shortage of strengths just as well as he knew his wealth of weaknesses. 

“Now, that sounds like a dream,” Klaus said

“Nothing but the truth,” Dave said with a sad smile. “And Vanya!” he yelled. “We have to get her away from that creep.”

“Creep?” Klaus asked. That may have been unfair. He certainly didn’t find the man attractive, barely even worthy of Klaus’ attention, but creep was a bit far.

“He had a murdered ghost thing following him,” Dave said.

“And he stole the action figure,” Ben said.

“Yes!” Dave said. “And he stole the action figure of your father.”

Klaus walked over to Dave and took his hands, leading him over to the most comfortable of their antique couches. He needed rest or a stiff drink or possibly both.

“I’m not crazy,” Dave said.

“He’s not,” Ben said.

“He’s not,” Five said. He strode over to the bar and started to pull out bottles of the best liquor. “He’s just remembering a different timeline.” He poured a considerable glass of whiskey that even made Klaus’ liver hurt. “He’s a man out of a time, which is usually how my former employer recruits new hires.” He toasted Dave. “Sorry, I just blew up various parts of their headquarters.”

“I wasn’t looking for a job anyway,” Dave said.

“Freeloader,” Ben said.

Klaus had to laugh at that. “I’m certainly no one’s sugar daddy.”

Five rested his elbows on one of those damned traveling briefcases. “Of course, I do have a one-way ticket back to where you came from.”

Dave’s eyes narrowed in the way that Klaus knew he was about to yell _bullshit_. Instead he just shook his head. “I’ll pass. I think I’m pretty good where I am right now.”

“The world’s ending in three days, an entire entity devoted to nothing but preserving fixed points and timelines are after my family, and you’re still recovering from a near-fatal wound,” Five said.

“I’m good,” Dave repeated, the kind of steel in his voice that always sent shivers down Klaus’ spine.

“No secrets in those pants,” Ben said. “Do you salute him before you blow him?”

Klaus threw one of the throw pillows in Ben’s direction as he watched the staredown between Dave and Five. There wasn’t much Klaus could do if they came to blows, but he had to try something.

Five blinked first and dropped something on the bar. “Good. Glad, I don’t have to use this.”

“Jesus, Five, is that a gun?” Klaus asked. 

Five shrugged. “Didn’t see the point in dead weight, but I’m happy to be corrected.” He took another sip of his drink. “Diego, Allison, and I are going after Harold Jenkins. Keep an eye on Luther.”

“Don’t you mean Luther should keep an eye on us?” Klaus asked.

“I know what I said the first time,” Five said.

He winced as he moved past the bar, hand going to his side. 

“Blood,” Dave murmured into Klaus’ ear. “I can smell it.”

Klaus could too, but Five wasn’t stopping and Klaus couldn’t run after him with their First-Aid Kit. He just hoped Five was smart enough to take care of whatever was wrong before it was too late. But Five reminded him of those young kids in their platoon, trying to hide injuries or put on a brave face because they didn’t want to let their brothers down. Klaus had zero qualms about ratting them out to whatever medic or corpsman or nurse was in the area. He already had an entire lifetime of ghosts following him. He spent all of twenty seconds debating before he shot up off the couch.

“Five, wait,” Klaus yelled. He reached behind the books dedicated to birdwatching and grabbed the small stash of band-aids and triple antibiotic ointment Vanya started leaving there after the first time a pre-teen Klaus stumbled down the stairs drunk off his ass. 

“We’re a little busy, Klaus,” Five said. “Clock’s ticking.”

Five was still wincing in pain and trying to hide it. He didn’t want the others to know. Years separated them now, but Klaus respected his brother’s decision to keep his injury secret even if he thought it was the kind of stupid shit Five wasn’t supposed to pull.

“You might need this,” he said, holding out the ziploc bag of basic medical supplies. “Papercuts are a bitch.”

“That’s mighty nice of you, Klaus,” Diego said, grabbing the bag and shoving it in one of the twenty pockets of his tactical cargo pants. “World’s ending, but let’s save ourselves the pain of papercuts.”

“Why add insult to injury,” Klaus said. 

He watched them file out the door, worry weighing heavy on his chest, and flinched when the door slammed shut behind them. It rang out too loudly for comfort in the empty front hall. If he listened closely he could hear other sounds of life. Dave’s sweet voice, murmuring low to Ben. Luther’s bulk creaking the floorboard of their father’s office, the rustle of papers and the sound of drawers opening and closing. Mom’s humming drifting down from her alcove. The _tap tap tap_ of Pogo’s cane as he made his rounds. 

Klaus gave himself a moment to close his eyes, take a breath, and remember what he had to fight for. 

**************

 

 

Water was a conductor, always had been, always would be. And yet, Klaus always found little bits of peace near running water. Showers could drown out the voices more than a soak in the tub, and today Klaus needed that quick refresher. There was just too much running around in his head. 

Ben was an asshole, but Dave really wasn’t. He couldn’t imagine Ben had somehow convinced Dave to lie about time repeating itself, a sort of Groundhog Day for the Hargreeves. And Five insisted they were telling the truth. Of all the impossible things in the world, in this house, in his family, a little time loop wasn’t even a drop in the bucket. 

It was easier to focus on the repeating day, because not doing it meant he had to focus on that one little detail Dave let slip. The one about Klaus using more of his powers.

Klaus wasn’t comfortable with the power he knew he had. Even though the Dead had always whispered to him, tried to take over his body, used his hands to write their words, his voice to tell their tales, it wasn’t something he was exactly proud of. It was familiar, if frightening, and not like the other things that had surfaced over the years.

The things like moving objects without touching them.

The things like picking up an item in his father’s study, and knowing its exact origins, seeing the artist who had made it, being able to smell, and hear, and taste its history on his tongue. 

The things like dreams coming true, not in any romantic sense, but as if he had pulled the very ideas out of his own head.

All those things didn’t happen often. He didn’t want to explore them. He hadn’t been trained in them. They only appeared during his longer periods of sobriety with an added dash of stress or life-threatening injury. 

And now the world was ending in three days. 

Klaus didn’t see how he could be much help, but he also couldn’t just sit on his ass twiddling his thumbs when he knew the Apocalypse was knocking on the door. 

Dear Old Papa had won again. 

“Dude,” Ben said.

“Jesus Christ, Boundaries!” Klaus yelled as he stepped out of the shower.

Ben rolled his eyes and walked into the room. “Get dressed. Luther is downstairs raiding the bar and I know Dave’s healing, but I can’t imagine handling a drunk Luther is good for his health.”

Luther, drunk? Ludicrous. Impossible. Preposterous.

And very, very real as Klaus found out, his still wet feet sliding on the living room floor in surprise.

Dave was patting Luther’s massive shoulder, his wide palms looking child sized resting on the bulk of Luther’s body.

“Hey, man, it’s okay,” Dave said in his best competent and caring leader voice. “I bet none of my Superior Officers read any of my reports either. I know it feels like a waste of time, but you got to live on the _Moon_. Who else can say that?”

“Four years,” Luther mumbled. He turned around, shaking off Dave’s hand, a tumbler of whiskey looking like a child’s toy in his palm, and pointed at Klaus. “You.”

“Me,” Klaus said.

“Summon him,” Luther said. “Summon that bastard right now.”

He had tried. He had tried over and over again. Reggie, as per his usual, wasn’t answering.

“Luther, I can’t,” Klaus said as he walked towards him, trying his damndest to look as small and innocent as possible. “I’ve tried.”

“Bullshit,” Luther said. 

He advanced so fast, Klaus didn’t have a chance to dodge him. One second Klaus was on terra firma, and the next he was raised off the ground, shoved against one of the columns, with his vision going black as Luther’s hand closed around his windpipe.

“Luther, stand down,” Dave commanded. 

Klaus could barely see, but he heard it as Dave got thrown to the ground. Klaus had to help him, he had to get to him. He had to get Luther to let go. He had to do something. 

Just do something.

“St--op,” Klaus choked out.

It was like the wind had been completely knocked out of him. He hit the ground hard, gasping for breath and Luther? Luther was straight across the room, flung by some force, into one of the couches.

“What the hell?” Luther asked, sitting up.

“Told you,” Ben said as he helped Dave up.

Klaus ran over to Dave first. “You okay? Nothing bleeding?”

Dave laughed, something like joy in his eyes. “Just bruised. I’ll heal.” He cupped Klaus’ jaw. “You are the most amazing thing,” he whispered, only for the two of them to hear.

“What just happened?” Luther asked again. “What’s going on?” 

He sounded so confused, so broken, and Klaus couldn’t leave him like that. 

“Go,” Dave said. “Be a crying shoulder.” He looked across the room. “I’ll go read or something.” He glanced back at Luther. “He desperately needs someone to talk to. I have a feeling this isn’t just about the Moon.”

It was definitely thirty years of repressed anger pouring out in vino veritas. Klaus wasn’t usually on the comforting end of these situations.

“I’m going to fuck this up,” Klaus said.

Dave laughed, looked around the room at the toppled furnituate and broken glasses. “How worse could it get?”

**************

It got worse. A lot worse. Ben had guilt tripped the hell out of Klaus for letting a drunken Luther roam the streets alone, and then verbally ripped him to shreds, getting Dave’s quiet agreement on his side, until Klaus caved.

So he left Dave in Mom and Pogo’s capable hands, pulled on a pair of shoes, and started walking their not so small city in search of his wayward brother.

“It’s not like he’ll be easy to miss,” Ben said.

“Not unless there’s a Furry convention in town,” Klaus said. He rubbed his bare arms. “Should've listened to Mom.”

“She did tell you to bring a jacket,” Ben agreed. 

Day had turned to afternoon to night. Klaus had checked in the park they sometimes escaped to as kids, the bowling alley that had been their one allowed recreational activity with the public, the donut shop, the ice cream place, various dive bars, a strip joint, and the bookstore. No sign of Luther, not one little trace. 

Klaus was tired, hungry, cold and ready to give up. Ben, being Ben, wouldn’t let him.

“Luther wouldn’t stop for anything,” Ben said.

“Where was he when I was tied to a chair and being tortured for hours?” Klaus asked.

Ben raised that judgy eyebrow of his. “Where were _all_ of you when I died?”

Ben would forever win that losing game.

“Fine,” Klaus said. He shook his arms out and tried to push down everything else. Maybe there was some ghost lingering about and he could ask if they’d seen an urban dwelling Bigfoot. Maybe he could use his powers and try to sense Luther or some shit. 

Or maybe two party girls talking about the biggest, hairiest guy they’d ever seen, along with a newspaper stand torn from its cement block home and thrown into a car’s windshield, could point in the direction of their illustrious Number One.

The absolute last place Klaus wanted to be right now was a loud techno club with its flashing lights and drugs at the ready. He’d already been on the teetering edge of sobriety for days now. This was the ultimate, frustrating, headache inducing test. It was actual torture, and not the fun kind.

Seeing a shirtless, high as fucking Mary Poppins, Luther dancing around? That was priceless and horrifying. Luther would hate himself in the morning. His regret would be never-ending. There was a time Klaus would’ve reveled in that, but now? He didn’t want Luther to feel it on top of all the other regret about to pour down on him once he sobered up.

“We have to get him out of here,” Ben said.

“I know that,” Klaus snapped at him. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, tried to center himself, but even his teeth felt like they were shaking. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Ben said. “You’re stronger than this, Klaus.”

He didn’t feel it. He didn’t feel it when Luther embraced him with a bear hug. He didn’t feel it when he slapped the E out of Luther’s hand. He certainly didn’t feel it when a random asshole slammed him to the ground and into the fucking Afterlife.

Of course Hell didn’t want him, and Heaven only answered the door to peek around the corner and slam it in his face.

**************

Klaus and Death were old buddies. He’d officially died six times so far, now on his seventh, and come back each time. Only half of those had been overdoses. He’d drowned in the bath once, dragged down by the ghosts. He’d gotten struck by lightning once as well, stopping his heart, after an ill-advised dance on a stormy beach. He’d come back each time, remembering the Afterlife in the way no one should be able to, but that was the deal with his powers. You had to be somewhere between living and dead to fully navigate them.

And of course that place in-between was where Darling Daddy Dearest finally emerged and had the audacity only Reggie could manage to criticize Klaus for being late to the meeting.

“You expected me to die before now?” Klaus asked.

“You certainly have the track record for it,” Dad said as he deliberately walked around the Barber Shop of the Unliving. “Weaker barbiturates these days?”

“I’ve been trying sobriety,” Klaus said.

Reginald scoffed. “And how many hours have you managed this time?”

“Days, actually,” Klaus said.

Klaus was in the middle of his shave and lecture when something his father said stopped him.

“What do you mean, potential?”

Reginald shook his head. “You could control the world if you tried, but you’d rather be at the bottom of the bottle.”

“I don’t want to control the world,” Klaus said. “Isn’t that a super villain thing? Weren’t we your troop of heroes?”

“You still don’t listen, Number Four,” Dad said. “I didn’t say control the people. I said control the world.” He shook his head. “So much potential, wasted.”

Always a disappointment. Death hadn’t changed that. 

He wasn’t going to tell Darling Papa about Dave, or throwing Luther off him with a sheer force of something, or the other sparks of greater powers that had been appearing in the last few days. Let Reggie drone on about disappointment and lost potential; he didn’t deserve the satisfaction of knowing Klaus could succeed, even if only a little.

Klaus had only barely been listening to Reggie’s rant until.

Until.

“You killed yourself?” Klaus asked.

Reginald nodded.

“Jesus Christ,” Klaus said. 

They certainly were a family of extremes. And even if Klaus didn’t want to admit it, couldn’t admit it, he knew Reggie was right. Nothing else, save his death, would’ve brought them all back to the house at the same time. 

How the hell did he know?

The implications of it all--of predicting the future and changing timelines and the horror of what his father had done made his thoughts fuzz out, his chest feel heavy, and then he was coughing on the stale air of the club again, a pounding in his head, and people gathered above him.

He’d come back once again, hurtling into the living world with a message to deliver. 

*************

He returned home sans Luther, with Ben, and Dave immediately pulling him into a tight hug.

“What happened?” Dave asked. He frowned as he looked at Klaus’ face, fingers gently resting on his temple. “Klaus?”

Klaus managed a brittle smile. “I really must have nine lives.”

Jacob, one of their mortar men, had told Klaus that, had even drawn a black cat on the back of Klaus’ helmet, and it had become a sort of touchstone for their group.

He knew Dave was still worried, could see it in the tightness around his eyes, his mouth, but his fingers were gentle and his touch soft as he led Klaus into the living room. He’d made a sort of nest of comfortable blankets and pillows there, far more homey looking than anything else in that room. 

“You weren’t able to find Luther?” Dave asked as they settled down into the blankets. 

Klaus curled up into Dave’s warmth and rested his head on his lap, soaking in all the _life_ Dave gave off.

“We found him,” Ben said. “We lost him. Any update on Harold Jenkins?”

Dave’s whole body went tense under him. Klaus patted the hands that were carefully massaging his scalp. “It’s okay,” he said.

“Vanya’s creepy boyfriend, alias Leonard Peabody, is Harold Jenkins. He has a record. He bashed his father’s skull in with a hammer.”

“That explains the ghost we saw,” Ben said.

“The others found an entire shrine to The Umbrella Academy in his attic. He’s obsessed with you.”

“We need to find Vanya,” Klaus said, sitting up.

Dave urged him back down. “Allison’s doing just that. There was no answer at Vanya’s apartment. She also hasn’t shown up at her music school. Leonard--Harold--that asshole didn’t return to his house. Apparently his grandmother owns a place in the country. Allison’s driving there now.”

“Alone?”

Dave sighed. “Five had a shrapnel wound. Your mother stitched it up, but he’s resting now. Kid needed the sleep.”

That ‘kid’ was older than all of them.

“Diego wouldn’t let Allison go alone,” Klaus said.

“Diego’s been arrested for murder,” Dave said.

Klaus was getting another headache. Why did it all always have to be so much at once.

“We need to get him out,” Klaus said. He needed is siblings. He couldn’t do this by himself. He opened his eyes and looked at Ben. “Pogo knows the family lawyer’s number, right?”

“He should,” Ben said. “But it’s late. They couldn’t do anything until the morning, probably. And he’s been arrested for murder of a cop. They’re not going to let him post bail.”

“Fuck,” Klaus said. He never wanted to see Luther more in his life than at that moment. “I should never be the one in charge of making plans.”

“Seriously,” Ben agreed. 

“Leave it until the morning,” Dave said. “Get some rest.”

Klaus had his father’s words ringing in his ears. They could only do this together, but they were all split apart in one way or another now. Klaus would have to get all the little chickens home to roost, but how the hell was he supposed to do that when one was in jail, one MIA, and the other holed up with an actual murderer? 

“ _Know when to fold ‘em and when to walk away_ ,” Klaus sang.

Dave let Klaus lean on him, humming softly under his breath, until Klaus couldn’t fight off sleep any longer.


	8. Brothers In Arms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Parts of the dialogue in this chapter are taking directly from the episode, _I Heard A Rumor_

It was quite the group gathered around the breakfast table that morning. Dave was leaning on the table, still taking in heaving breaths, recovering from his battle with the stairs. Luther was holding his head in his hands, dealing with his first ever hangover. Five, in his perfectly ironed official Umbrella Academy pajajams, looked in the best health of all three, tired, but curious as he took his seat.

“Does anyone know where the aspirin is?” Luther asked.

“On the shelf, behind the crackers,” Five said.

Klaus finished plating his stacks of pancakes and placed them on the table, next to some butter and a bottle of syrup. The coffee was next, using freshly ground beans he’d bought this morning, along with a French press to brew them. It was quite a nice spread, if he did say so himself, especially considering he hadn’t cooked for anyone in a good year. 

“Any questions before I call this meeting to order?” Klaus asked as he passed out cups of coffee.

“This coffee tastes like shit,” Five said. 

“Where is everyone?” Luther asked.

“Who is ‘Queen?’” Dave asked, staring down at one of his new t-shirts.

Five laughed. “Jesus, you _are_ old.”

Klaus suddenly understood why Luther was often in such a bad mood. Trying to lead a meeting between them was like herding cats. He slapped his spatula against the table. 

“This is a bad idea,” Ben said.

Klaus waved him off. “To answer your questions. If you want coffee up to your standards, make it yourself. Allison is trying to track down Vanya and bring her home. She couldn’t find her at what I am certain is a murder cabin in the woods, so she’s on her way back. And Diego’s in lock-up.” He held up a hand as Luther started to speak. “Pogo’s already put a call in with the family lawyers. We’re working on it.” He turned to Dave. “And Queen is a magnificent band, the likes of which the world hasn’t seen before or since. If we survive, we’ll have a history lesson.”

“Going to perform some _Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy_ again?” Five asked with that all too familiar quirk to his lips.

“If Allison will let me borrow her boa again,” Klaus agreed. Those were good times. He’d won a local talent show with that number.

“Klaus,” Luther said with a long sigh, “why are we here?”

For someone who had a hell of night out, Luther was far too cranky in Klaus’ opinion.

“Well,” Klaus said, hands covered over his heart, “while some of us were out painting the town red, white, and Luther, and drinking half the bottles in the wine cellar, and losing their virginity, I conjured Dad last night.”

“Good for you,” Five said with a nod to Luther. “It’s about time you unclenched.”

Luther shook his head, a blush starting to spread across his cheeks. “I don’t want to talk about it.” He turned to Klaus. “What do you mean you conjured Dad? You said you haven’t been able to.”

Klaus nodded. “He was being the most stubborn of bastards. Apparently I had to almost die to see him. Now I had overdosed right when the news of his death broke and he didn’t appear then, so I don’t know why he made me wait for days to mostly die again, but he is as he has always been.”

“You did _what_?” Dave asked. 

“Bad idea,” Ben repeated. 

Dave had his fork poised halfway to his mouth, syrup falling to the table, and a look in his eyes that promised murder.

“It was only a little death,” Klaus assured him. “Not the fun kind, granted, but nothing to worry about. Some goon just smashed my head against the floor when I was trying to save Luther from getting shanked.” 

“ _That’s_ what you meant when you said you really did have nine lives,” Dave said. He shook his head and ate his pancakes with a horribly displeased look on his face.

They’d have to discuss it more later, without an audience, but Klaus knew Dave was pissed at him. And it sucked because it had happened so few times in the near year they’d known each other. It left a taste like ash in Klaus’ mouth, suddenly feeling sick at the thought of Dave’s disappointment in him. He knew it was more out of worry than true anger, but logic rarely won out in Klaus’ emotional mind. 

“So you conjured the bastard,” Five said. “He have anything interesting to tell you?”

Klaus nodded. “He did.”

“Don’t do it,” Ben warned.

“Dad told me everything and we don’t need to investigate a murder because he killed himself.”

“Bullshit,” Luther said. He stood, chair banging back against the wall. “Dad wasn’t suicidal. He didn’t show any of the signs. He was in his right mind.”

“Was he?” Klaus asked. “Really? You were on the Moon, where he sent you. Vanya, his ever present sidekick and soldier had flown the coop and revealed all the family secrets. Diego was doing his masked vigilante thing, only ever coming home to see Mom or Pogo. Allison was on the other side of the country. Ben was dead, Five was gone, and I was me. Was he really in his right mind? His grand experiment so clearly having failed.”

Luther shook his head in denial. “He didn’t kill himself.”

“Wait,” Five said, sitting up. “Why did he do it, if he did?”

Klaus shrugged. “He said it was the only way to get us all home again. To save the world or some shit.”

Luther shook his head again. “I swear to God, Klaus, if you’re lying.”

He wasn’t. At all. He wished he was. “I’m not,” he said. “I swear, Luther, I’m not.”

“Master Klaus is correct,” Pogo said from the doorway. 

All eyes turned to Pogo as he leaned on his cane and sighed.

“Regretfully, I helped Master Hargreeves enact his plan.”

 

**************

 

Klaus had his feet in Dave’s lap, trying to work on the whole moving shit with his mind thing, and trying not to think about the quiet anger still simmering under Dave’s skin.

“I’m not angry at you,” Dave said, finally breaking the silence. “I’m upset.”

Klaus couldn’t blame him. He turned his attention from the floating pile of books in the middle of the room and let them drop. 

“It’s not--my normal is not most people’s normal.”

“Coming back from the dead shouldn’t be anyone’s normal,” Dave agreed. He turned and studied Klaus with such sadness in his eyes. “I hate this for you. You shouldn’t have to suffer like that.”

Klaus didn’t really know how to deal with someone caring so much about _him_. It was still very much a learning process, even months into their relationship, and something he cherished and appreciated, but still didn’t always know how to handle. It was hard to explain the things like the temporary deaths and the talking to ghosts to anyone who hadn’t grown up with him. He hadn’t ever needed to explain it to anyone else really. No one had been around long enough and everyone else who knew was family. 

“It doesn’t hurt,” Klaus said. “Not really I---it’s a shock being mostly alive one minute then dead and then back in the land of the living. I never really shuffle loose the mortal coil, just cling on to the fraying threads. Remembering to breathe is probably the hardest part.” He shrugged. “Just one more perk of being me, I guess.”

Dave’s fingers were warm as they tapped out a rhythm on the top of Klaus’ feet. Klaus could get little flashes of Dave’s past with each tap of his fingers there. Happy families and sunshine and so much love and warmth. It was pleasant. It was calming.

“Get up, we’re going,” Five said, bursting into the room all uniformed up.

“Where?” Klaus asked.

“To save the world, of course,” Five said.

“You really going to try and save the world in schoolboy shorts and knee high socks?” Klaus asked.

“You really going to try and save it in the same leather pants you’ve been wearing for days?” Five asked.

Klaus was offended for his pants, but he couldn’t argue the point.

“The old man couldn’t time travel, so how did he know the world was ending? How did he know to off himself the exact week before it happened?” Five asked. He held up a finger. “Don’t answer, it was purely rhetorical.”

“Maybe _he_ could speak to ghosts from the future,” Dave muttered, making both Ben and Klaus laugh.

“Truth is,” Five continued on, “he was always telling us we’d save the world from an impending apocalypse.”

“Yeah,” Klaus said as he sat up and started to pull on his socks and shoes since Time and Five waited for no one. “I always thought he said that to scare us into doing the dishes.”

“Me too,” Five said. “But what if he actually knew when the world was going to end?”

“How?” Klaus asked. That was the mystery Papa wouldn’t even reveal in death.

“Who knows?” Five asked. “But his plan worked. We all came home. And now we have to go save the world.”

Klaus was almost touched Five trusted him with this. “Really? The two of us?”

“Well,” Five said. “You and the half-dead soldier there are all I’ve got.”

“Thanks,” Dave said. He looked around the room. “Do I even have shoes?”

Ben dropped a pair of black sneakers in his lap.

Five looked at Klaus. “Was that you?”

“Ben,” he said.

Five nodded. “Okay, so I have you, the half-dead soldier, and a ghost.” He shrugged. “Could be worse. Let’s go.”

Diego ran past them, running towards the stairs. 

“How did you get out?” Klaus called after him.

“Got a key, walked out the back door,” Diego yelled back.

He returned with his utility harness and a different jacket. “I learned more about Harold Jenkins while I was in lock-up. We’ve got to get to Allison and Vanya quick.”

“Allison’s on her way back,” Klaus said.

Five shook his head. “No, she called a few minutes ago. Said something happened and she was shadowing a cop to find Vanya.”

“Shit,” Diego said. He looked at the gathered group. “Where’s Luther?”

They found Luther in the local Irish Pub doing his best to drown his sorrows. They’d left Dave and Ben in the car, but Five and Klaus hung back as Diego tried to give Luther a pep talk.

“Number One is a little behind the times in glorious and bitter anger towards Daddy,” Klaus said.

Five smirked. “Well, that’s what happens when your worship someone and refuse to see their flaws. Luther’s always been far too trusting. He’s going through the stages of grief about this. Solidly in the middle of the anger stage.”

“And wallowing,” Klaus agreed. He leaned back against one of the worn and sticky tables. “We don’t have time for his pity party. Not now.”

“Diego will get him to move,” Five said. “Allison’s in trouble. Luther won’t abandon her. It would go against everything he’s supposed to stand for.”

“And he’s not going to find any answers at the bottom of the bottle,” Klaus said. He’d known more than any of them. 

Sure enough as soon as Diego mentioned Allison, Harold Jenkins, and the information that Jenkins was a convicted murderer, which Klaus had forgot to tell him that morning, Luther was running out of the bar, shoving tables and chairs out of his way, and breaking the glass pane of the bar’s door.

“We’ll pay for that,” Klaus yelled to the bartender. He turned to Five. “Pay the man.”

Five sighed and took a wad of cash out of his shorts. “The things I do for this family.”

Diego and Luther got shoved in the back seat, pushing Dave to the end and forcing Ben to manifest between Klaus and Five. It was a good thing they _couldn’t_ see him, or else they would’ve crashed before they even got out of the parking lost.

“How could you not tell me this, Klaus?” Luther asked.

“I told you she was at the murder cabin in the woods,” Klaus said.

“You didn’t tell me about Harold Jenkins. You said she was looking for Vanya,” Luther yelled at him.

“Allison said she was on her way home,” Klaus said. “She was fine.”

“She’s alone and the world is ending. None of that is fine,” Luther said.

“Hypocrisy, thy name is Luther,” Five said. “Tell us all we have to save the world, then tells us to fuck off, and now we have to save just one person, all with two days left to live. Anyone else hear that ticking clock?”

Klaus laughed. “Diego, did you stick any bombs in the trunk?”

Diego frowned as if he really had to think about it. “Not this time.”

Dave started laugh. Shallow and quiet at first, then morphing into a loud belly laugh that filled the car, making the others start to laugh too.

It was ridiculous. All of it. All of them. Everything. But here they were, apparently the world’s only chance against the end of days.

 

**************

 

And then they weren’t laughing anymore. 

They were all shocked into silence as they circled around Allison on the cabin floor, bleeding out from a severe laceration to her throat. The only sound was the wind chimes on the porch.

“We don’t have time for this,” Dave said, pushing past the others. “She’s still breathing. We need to get her out of here now.”

He took over, forcing a crying Luther back and demanding Five give over his tie, holding it tight over Allison’s wound. 

“Diego, Klaus, you’re of similar height. Pick her up carefully and hold her steady. I’ll get in the back of the car to cradle her, Diego will follow me in, and then Luther.” He looked up at Five. “And you?”

“I’ll drive like it’s the end of the fucking world,” Five said.

They sprang into action. Allison tried to talk before losing consciousness, making wounding, gurgling, horrible sounds that would haunt Klaus until the end of days. Dave and Diego spoke to her in quiet, soothing tones, even after she stopped responding. Dave would update them every five minutes that her pulse was still there, though shallow.

Klaus prayed to anyone listening. To all the ghosts that have ever wanted him to help them. To every entity that haunted him. Just let her live. Just let her live. Just let her live. 

And then they were home. Allison was on the gurney that had held Dave just days ago. Mom was over her, in full on life-saving mode, and Diego was passed out on the floor, as they started the blood transfusion.

“Knives are his soulmate but he’s afraid of needles?” Dave asked.

Klaus couldn’t say much then, looking at all of them covered in Allison’s blood, seeing his vibrant sister silent and laid about before them. He just shrugged and wrapped his fingers around Allison’s ankle, Luther already cradling her delicate hand in his massive palms.

He got hints of her life from her shoes. Sadness and laughter and Claire. So much Claire. Klaus didn’t want to have to call her ex, to tell her beautiful daughter that her mother was never coming home.

Just let her live. 

He took a shuddering breath and stepped back. 

He couldn’t do this. 

He stumbled out of the room, towards the stairs, ignoring the concerned calls of Pogo, Dave, and Five.

He couldn’t do this. 

Ben appeared next to him as he took the stairs to their rooms. Quiet, constant, Ben who had appeared only hours after they put his body and the ground and hadn’t left Klaus since. 

Klaus started to tear his room apart. He knew he had a stash in here somewhere, buried under clothes and yarn and bedsheets. He found the stuffed unicorn full of magical pills and pulled out the packet, ignored whatever Ben was yelling at him in the background. He opened the plastic baggie up, poured a handful into his palm and stared at them.

He couldn’t do this.


	9. Blood on the Water (Dave Interlude 3)

Dave hadn’t been surrounded by much death as a child. The closest he’d come to an overwhelming sense of Doom had been those school drills in case the Soviets decided to drop a bomb on them, as if huddling under their desks could save them from an atomic bomb. It’d never felt real though, that threat they’d grown up with, and Dave had been so very naive in so many ways. 

Then Vietnam came and Death? It was everywhere. Hell, he’d only risen to the rank of Sergeant because he was one of the few of his original group left standing. No one had been safe then, not even the President of the United States, from bullets flying. And in so many ways, with so much of Hell on Earth around them, doom and death and mortality became their own sort of sad, sick jokes. It was all just another part of life: eat, shit, shoot, maybe die. Bunk down and repeat if the morning came.

He’d lost men and he’d lost civilians caught in the crossfire. He’d lost many of them, holding their hands as they choked on their own blood, stuttered in languages Dave didn’t understand, or gave one last haunting plea for their mommas. He’d shared looks of dispersion with medics as they did any and everything they could to save someone. He’d dug more graves than anyone not working in a cemetery should. 

And still the thick air of fear and loss in the Hargreeves home stole his breath. 

Before Allison’s injury, it hadn’t exactly been a place full of light. The heavy architecture, dark colors, and general silence had it felt more like a museum--one of those historic houses you went to visit to see how it once was, everything roped off separating the past from real life--not a home where seven children grew up. 

Now you could taste the desperation in the air, the distinct smell that came of sweat, fear, an adrenaline. The world was ending. Allison had almost died. Vanya was in the company of a murderous creep. And everyone, even Grace who supposedly wasn’t programmed to feel these things, was on edge. 

Dave wanted to fix it. To fix them. To fix everything. To fix himself. But he couldn’t. He knew there were some things he just could not do. He could do something though--a bunch of little somethings--starting with getting Luther out of here for at least a half an hour. 

“You should get some rest,” he said.

Luther ignored him, hunched himself into a smaller ball, his hands gripping Allison’s even tighter. There was dried blood all over Luther’s fingers, covering his gloves, and Dave could still smell it in the air, as if the Grim Reaper themself was still lingering in the shadows, just in case. 

“Luther, if you won’t do it for yourself, do it for her,” Dave said. 

It was a dangerous thing to touch Luther right now, but he’d never seen anyone more in need of a break. Luther’s thousand-yard-stare was easily closer to a hundred thousand now.. He placed his hand on Luther’s shoulder, allowed it to be a comforting weight, and waited as Luther pulled himself back from wherever he’d let his mind wander.

“What did you say?” Luther asked.

Dave carefully propped against Allison’s bed so he could lean down and meet Luther’s eyes. 

“You need to wash your hands, at the very least. Change your clothes. Brush your teeth. She shouldn’t wake up to you covered in her blood and smelling like death.”

“If she wakes up,” Luther said.

Dave turned to the still, quiet woman on the bed. She still glowed with something otherworldly, still full of some life, even with a stark white bandage across her throat, a shirt ruined with her own blood and traces of dried blood still on her skin. She had told him once that he would live when he should’ve died. And now he said the same to her, even if it didn’t hold the same power.

“I heard a rumor you’re going to live,” Dave whisphered.

Luther let out a small sob and Dave stood watch there, as Luther’s shoulders shook, and he lost himself in a grief he couldn’t let the others see.

One of those burdens of leaderships only other leaders knew. 

**************

“Hey,” Klaus said. He looked wrung out, hands shaking as he gripped the doorjamb as if it was the only thing holding him up. “So I just did a dumb thing, but then, it didn’t matter? Or it did? Anyway, Ben just punched an entire mouthful of pills out of my me.”

Dave glanced at Ben who looked--well, if a ghost could’ve _just seen a ghost_ , that was how Ben looked. He held his hands out and shrugged.

“Ben has knocked stuff over before,” Dave said.

Klaus shook his head. “Not like this he hasn’t. He’s never been able to touch me before.”

Ben had touched Dave though, on more than one occasion, even helping him to stand. “Did you want Ben to punch you in the mouth?” Dave asked. 

Klaus shook his head.

Dave tried another tactic. “Did you _need_ him to?”

Klaus had said it before, once, in the dark of a dank hotel room on leave, shaking through a detox and begging. _I need someone to take away my options. Please take away my options._ He hadn’t really understood then, didn’t know why Klaus was so desperate to get clean, but knowing what he knew now, he got it.

Klaus wasn’t weak. He was scared, almost always, and had a damn good reason to be. He was a man never allowed to be alone in his own mind, never allowed to be at peace if he wasn’t using something to quiet the world around him. Anything and everything could set Klaus off, if it ever had life or a memory attached to it. No wonder he was rarely sober, and sometimes clinging on to the edge of sanity with his fingertips. The man who raised him had seen that power and didn’t know how to train it or use it and Klaus had been bumbling about since childhood, trying to control it on his own while also trying to keep it all at bay. 

“I think I did,” Klaus admitted. “It wasn’t--it wasn’t like normal. It was like a surge. Electricity in the air.”

Ben nodded. “There was definitely a buzz.”

“When was the last time you were completely sober for this long?” Dave asked. “I haven’t even seen you smoke in a couple days.”

Ben and Klaus exchanged a look. “The tomb?” Ben asked. “Or the graveyard?”

Klaus nodded. “The graveyard. So, seven, I think,” Klaus said. He tilted his head to the side as if sorting through all the memories before him. He nodded. “Seven. Started swiping booze after that when the voices came in the night. Got worse after the first run through in the crypt when I was eight.”

Dave had honestly never spent an entire week of his life wanting to beat the shit out of dead man more than he had when learning all the dark truths about Reginald Hargreeves.

“So this is the first time as an adult you don’t have anything really in your system. So your powers are probably going to be a little unpredictable. Possibly in surges. Possibly trying to protect you from protecting yourself,” Dave guessed. He palmed the back of Klaus’ neck and smiled as Klaus leaned into the touch. “Or Ben just really, really wanted to punch you in the face.”

“I mean, it wasn’t just the punching,” Ben said. “I also didn’t want him to overdose again.”

Dave gave Ben a grateful nod. “Yeah, let’s try to avoid that for now.”

“I’m sorry I’m such a failure,” Klaus said, murmuring the words into Dave’s forearm.

“You’re not a failure,” Dave said. “You’re just a drowning man grasping at anything he can get his hands on. Hopefully we’ll all find land soon.”

Klaus made a face. “I have actually drowned before. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Klaus!” Diego yelled. “Family meeting. Living room. Now.”

Klaus’ entire body drooped at those words. “Do I have to?” he asked.

Dave kissed his forehead, let his lips linger there for longer than he should. “Go,” he said with a gentle shove. 

“You aren’t coming?” Klaus asked.

Dave shook his head. “I promised I’d stay with Allison.”

Klaus gathered Dave’s hands in his own and then brought them up for a brief kiss. “You’re too good for all of us,” he said, before turning away. 

Ben lingered behind, glancing between the doorway and Allison.

“I don’t think she’s in-between,” he said.

Like Dave, Klaus, and Ben all were. Not completely dead, not completely living, somewhere lost in the ether or the abyss, with feet planted on either side of the grave.

“No,” Dave agreed. “I think she very much has her feet on this side of living. And I don’t think she’s going to let go without a hell of a fight.”

“She won’t,” Ben said. “Out of all them, she’s the most with something to live for.” He left then, his footsteps just making the barest hint of a sound as he walked down the stairs.

Maybe it was the closer they got to the end of world. Maybe it was the strengthening of Klaus’ powers. Whatever it was, Ben was turning more and more back into something like alive.

**************

Luther had exchanged one grey shirt for another, but at least he wasn’t covered in blood. Grace was just checking on the stitches when he appeared.

“Is she awake?” he asked.

Dave shook his head. 

“Her vocals are badly damaged,” Grace said. “She may never talk again.” She laid a clean shirt by the end of the bed.

“We should step out,” Dave said. “They’re about to change her clothes.”

Luther pushed past him and took his seat by Allison’s bed. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

Grace bowed her head while Pogo tried to reason with him.

“Master Luther, you should get some rest,” he said. He placed a hand on Luther’s shoulder to try and comfort him. “We can take it from here.”

“You’re the last person I would trust here,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

None of them could move Luther. Even if every last living being in this house combined their strength together, along with some aid from Klaus’ closest ghost friends, they wouldn’t be able to move Luther. He was supposed to be the logical one, so Dave was going to have to try that tactic. 

“Luther,” Dave said, “for the sake of her own dignity, you need to step out of this room right now. Respect your sister and her privacy. Keep your vigil after this, that’s fine. But right now? She needs to get out of that bloodstained top, at the very least. Grace can wash away as much of the blood on her body as she can get without touching the wound. These are the two people who have raised her and whether you trust them or not, she does.”

Luther glared at him. “What gives you _any_ right to tell me what to do?”

He didn’t have one, but Luther was overbrimming with anger and everyone was a target. 

“I don’t answer to you,” Dave said. “And I don’t care about who leads this merry little band of misfits you call your family to the end of the world. But right now? I’m the only one in this room not carrying around a herd of complex problems related to anyone else in this room. I’m not here to defend them or you in whatever fight you have going on.” He pointed to the bed. “Right now, I’m here to defend her. And if you could pull your head out of your ass for a whole minute, maybe you could see that you’re not the only one desperate to help and protect her right now.”

If Luther threw a punch at him, Dave had little doubt it would break several of his bones. But he’d also woken up after almost dying surrounded by the stench of his own blood. He wasn’t ever going to wish that on someone else. He couldn’t do a hell of a lot right now, but he could do this. 

Dave gestured to the doorway. “We’ll be right there. You can listen to everything they do.”

“Fine,” Luther said. 

He didn’t look at Grace, Pogo, or Dave. He kept his eyes forward, stood at attention, and didn’t say a word until they were done. Then he resumed his place at Allison’s side, glaring at all of them as he held her hand.

Grace gently laid her cool hand on Dave’s arm. “The others should return soon.”

Dave held his arm out to her and they walked down the stairs, Grace slowing her own pace to match Dave’s. 

“Brunch today, I believe,” she said. “Klaus will want French Toast.”

“No oatmeal?” Dave asked.

“Not today,” Grace said. 

They’d just hit the first floor landing when the front door burst open in a flurry of activity, with Diego, Five, and Klaus returned from their mission.

“Harold Jenkins is dead,” Diego said. “Apocalypse over, I guess.”

That seemed far too easy. 

“He’s what?” Dave asked. Grace stepped away from him to head down the stairs towards the kitchen, but Klaus quickly took her place as someone to lean on.

“He’s dead. Very dead. Didn’t even get a ghost out of him,” Klaus said. “He looked like a modern day victim of Vlad the Impaler.”

Diego nodded. “So, mission accomplished. I’m going after Hazel and ChaCha. We have some unfinished business.”

“Wait,” Dave called after him. “Where’s Vanya?”

Diego stopped and turned around. “She wasn’t there. We called her apartment and no answer.”

Dave could feel a vicious twitch starting in his right eye. He was going to name it Diego. “Vanya’s still missing. Her boyfriend is dead and you and you just left him there?”

“Well, Diego’s wanted for murder. Klaus has a record. And I’m almost positive I’m still on a milk carton somewhere,” Five said. “It’s not like we were going to call the cops until we were long gone.”

“Why would you be on a milk carton?” Dave asked, allowing himself the momentary distraction. 

“Missing kids? Milk cartons?” Five asked. “Not ringing any bells, there?”

“That wasn’t until the 80s,” Ben said.

Dave waved a hand to silence him. “So the one man who was supposed to be protected in order for the apocalypse to happen has been killed by a whole slew of apparently every pointy or sharp object in the vicinity and none of you thought that was strange enough to investigate a little bit more? You, the time-traveling kid, the ghost, the one who can see ghosts, and whatever the hell Diego is?”

“I feel like you’re judging us,” Five said. “I almost respect that.”

“Didn’t you go to the police academy?” Dave asked Diego. “Nothing in there about investigating crime scenes?”

“Well, he obviously missed the point about leaving fingerprints behind,” Ben said.

“You think we should go investigate the scene more?” Diego asked, getting closer to Dave. “You think with our sister missing, and Hazel and ChaCha still out there, we should be trying to solve the death of a murderous creep?”

Dave didn’t give an inch to Diego. It was far from the first time someone had gotten in his face and Diego hadn’t even spit on him, unlike a whole slew of drill sergeants.

“I think there may be some answers you’re missing that giving the scene at least one more look-over won’t hurt. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll find something leading you to Vanya as well.”

Five shrugged. “We’re out of leads, Diego. What could it hurt?” 

“It’s a waste of time,” Diego said, not taking his eyes off Dave.

“And if it isn’t?” Dave asked. He stepped closer to Diego, forcing him to step back. “Can you live with it, if you’re wrong?” he asked, voice pitched low enough only for Diego to hear.

Diego glanced behind him to the stairs, eyes going straight to his mother lingering in the foyer, and then angrily nodded.

“Fine. We’ll do one last check of the scene if the cops aren’t already there. That’s it. I’ll drop everyone back off here, and then I’m going after those two assholes. You have five minutes to get ready.”

“I’m going to need some aspirin,” Dave said.

“I’m going to need a margarita,” Five said. 

**************

They’d found a notebook near Leonard/Harold’s body. The expensive kind, with a real leather binding, heavy paper inside, and the letters _RH_ embossed in gold on the cover. It was Reginald Hargreeve’s journal. A history of research. A bastion of knowledge. And something completely left forgotten after what Luther had done.

Vanya had returned while they’d been out. She’d come to her family. To seek comfort. To seek support. To seek absolution. And Luther had locked her up. He’d locked her up because her powers were uncontrollable, he’d said. He’d embraced her like a brother, choked off her airway in a hug, and dropped her in the soundproof dungeon room they apparently had in the old tunnels under the house.

Dave was by Allison’s beside, flipping through the journal, and absolutely fuming in anger. 

He was angry at Pogo for keeping the truth from all these children for so long. He was angry at Grace for doing the same thing. He was angry at Luther for betraying his sister’s trust and locking her away. He was angry at himself for not being able to do more. And he was absolutely angry at Reginald Hargreeves the more and more he read the journal. 

He couldn’t tame Vanya so he’d used a combination of Allison’s powers and a medical concoction to drug her into submission. 

Her powers were controlled by emotions, understandably unstable for a child who didn’t know any better, and Reginald Hargreeves felt it was best to try and sweep it all under the proverbial rug.

Dave looked up when warm fingers tapped his clenched fist. Allison frowned at him. 

He shook his head. “It’s not good.”

She picked up her notebook and marker. _I want to see her_ she wrote.

Dave nodded. “I can’t get you all the way down there, but I can at least help you out of bed.”

Allison nodded and between the two of them they managed to get her out of bed and on to mostly steady feet. It was a struggle to get her down to the foyer, but Allison wasn’t strong enough to get to the lowest levels of the house on her own.

“I’ll take her,” Grace said.

She still wore white so pure it was almost blinding in the dim light of the foyer. Allison didn’t hesitate to take the helping hand of her mother, and Dave watched them go, contemplating all the questions running through his head. 

Reginald Hargreeves had known most of his children had more powers than the ones they’d originally presented. Klaus had started drinking and doing any drug he could get his hands on so his father couldn’t experiment on him. Five had disappeared. Ben had died. And Vanya had been abandoned by them all. 

How many other kids born on that day were out there with other powers? How many of them had grown up with these amazing abilities? Or were they triggered by something, lying dormant until an opportunist old man could tease it out, little by little, for his own curiosity and personal gain? And how much still remained hidden in those seven who had grown up under this roof? Klaus and Vanya were both proof that Reginald Hargreeves had barely scratched the surface of what they could do. 

Dave hadn’t grown up around much Death, nor with an overwhelming sense of Doom. But right now he could feel it, pressing down on his chest, a weight on his shoulders, shadows growing in the fading light. 

None of this was over. 

Not by a long shot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delayed and very short chapter. Life has been throwing an entire stadium's worth of curveballs at me the past week, and I haven't been able to get much writing done. I wanted to get something posted though, so I hope the above chapter helps tide over until the next one.


	10. Before the Dawn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next two chapters are going to feature dialogue directly pulled from episodes nine and ten.

A horrible or sudden death didn’t necessarily mean a ghost would or could manifest. Klaus didn’t really know about that side of things, didn’t know how ghosts came to be, but he knew that considering the historic and current murder rate of this city, if every murder resulted in a ghost, he’d never get a single millisecond to himself.

And then there were the deaths like that of Leonard/Harold. If Klaus was more of a spiritual person he’d probably posit that a soulless man didn’t warrant a ghost or an afterlife. The manner of his death certainly left the door open for the type of unfinished business that would keep a soul from going to the proverbial light, but this house, this scene, and the body inside had been absolutely silent this morning. Standing outside that same house now, he still couldn’t feel anything on the other side the door, nothing was whispering his name or demanding his attention. He still didn’t want to go back to a murder scene though, and hesitated on the porch. 

The neighborhood was too quiet for the horrors hidden inside this home and the monster who had lived under its roof. He hadn’t even wanted to come here in the first place, and now here he was, twice in one day, standing on this porch, trying to ignore the warning that sounded in the wind chimes. Klaus shivered in the afternoon sun and wished he’d brought a coat or at least changed to a shirt with sleeves.

“Okay?” Dave asked. His hand was warm where it rested on the back of Klaus’ neck, a grounded presence that kept Klaus anchored. 

“Only so many times I like to see a dead body,” Klaus tried to joke, but even he knew his tone edged on desperate.

“I’m sorry,” Dave said. “Maybe you should wait out here. Be the lookout.” He turned to Ben. “He can keep you company.”

Klaus could’ve kissed him for giving Klaus the choice. And then did, just because he could.

“What’s the good of speaking to the dead if I’m out on the porch?” Klaus asked after he pulled back.

“That fucker doesn’t deserve any words from beyond the grave,” Dave said. “You see him, you block him out.”

“He’s not in there anyway,” Klaus said. 

“Good,” Dave said. He turned to look through the door where Diego and Five were starting to carefully sort through the wreckage. “I wouldn’t have insisted you come back if I didn’t have a gut feeling.”

That gut feeling has saved all of their asses more than once in the shit and Klaus was the last person to argue against the power of intuition.

“I’ll be there in a second,” Klaus said. He playfully shoved Dave towards the door. “I know you want to go in there and give it a thorough check.”

“Nothing wrong with a fresh pair of eyes,” Dave said as he entered the house, immediately hugging the walls and taking in the perimeter.

Klaus had to laugh as he watched him. You could take the boy out of the war, but if you dropped him in an end of the world scenario decades in the future, he’d immediately fall back on his military training. 

“For someone who’s been the definition of insubordinate for most of his life, you sure do like taking orders from him,” Ben said.

Klaus grinned at some good memories. “Always,” he said.

“Ready?” Ben asked as Klaus braced himself to go inside.

“Nope,” Klaus said even as he made for the door. 

He could already hear Dave and Diego discussing the scene before them as Five made a wide circle of the murder scene.

“Nothing about this is natural,” Diego said. “Even I couldn’t accurately stab a man with that many implements in such a perfect pattern.”

“Maybe you need to try harder,” Five said. He looked around the room. “Whatever it was, it wasn’t premeditated.”

“This was definitely a crime of passion,” Dave agreed. He shrugged at the looks Diego and Five gave him. “One of my uncles is--was--a homicide detective.”

Five put his hands in his pockets and leaned back. “Against my better judgment, I’m liking you more each day.”

“Thanks,” Dave said as he stopped directly behind the body.

“What’s he doing?” Diego asked Klaus.

“Trying to see what Leonard? Harold? The Stalker saw,” Five said. “So?” 

“It’s like there was a cyclone,” Dave said. He toed at a patch of sand on the floor. “Swirls in whatever this is, but…” He looked around the dining room and living room in confusion.

Klaus followed his gaze, noticed all the various knick-knacks on the wall, some missing, some still there, pulled from both rooms.

“How do you only pull one decorative spoon out of ten? One single wine glass out of a set? Two collectible plates off one shelf but not the other? How are the lighting fixtures still perfectly intact but the table destroyed?” Klaus asked.

“Look at you with the smart questions,” Ben said, patting Klaus on the shoulder. 

“Blood was already dried and rigor had set in when we arrived this morning,” Diego said.

Dave circled closer around the body, crouching down as something caught his eye.

“Please don’t tell me _you’re_ going to try and stick another glass eye into his empty socket,” Diego said.

“No,” Dave said. He carefully extracted a book from the pile. “RH?”

Klaus froze as Diego and Five did the same. They all knew that journal. They’d seen their father writing in that journal their entire lives. Klaus had tossed that journal into a dumpster a week--10 months--what felt like ages--ago.

Leonard hadn’t just been stalking Vanya. He’d been stalking all of them.

“Son of a bitch,” Klaus said.

**************

Vanya. Sweet, quiet, tiny Vanya. Their Vanya. Vanya who cried over dead ants and begged them to release any spiders they caught. Vanya who mended the wings of broken birds and fed starved alley cats and saved her allowance to buy food and toys and treats and medicine for stray dogs. Vanya who only raised her voice once--maybe--a decade. Vanya who always hugged the shadows and kept her head bowed and always wore oversized shirts with long sleeves to cover her hands to keep herself hidden.

That Vanya was locked up now. Banging on the metal door of some sort of bomb shelter, screaming and crying, and none of them could hear her, but they could see it. Vanya who had apparently attacked Allison with powers she didn’t know she had and had no idea how to control. Vanya, who Luther refused to trust now and who had locked her up without consulting anyone else other than Pogo.

Klaus who could speak to the dead and move some things with his mind, had a brother who time traveled, had a dead brother who was able to punch him in the face, couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe any of it.

“We can’t leave her there,” Klaus told Diego.

“We don’t have a choice,” Luther said. “She’s a danger to us, she’s a danger to herself. We have to keep here locked inside until we know what to do.”

Allison shook her head in disagreement, turning from Luther’s support and stumbling towards the stairs on her own. Klaus ran after her to help, letting Diego argue with Luther. Maybe, just maybe he would listen this time. Allison trembled with emotion, pain, exhaustion, as she took in reedy breaths and tried to mount the stairs, tears streaming down her face. All Klaus could do was give her a shoulder to lean on.

Christ, where was Five? 

Klaus knew darkness. He knew bitterness and sadness. He knew fear, the creeping crawl of it up his spine, the sour taste in his mouth. All of that hit him like a wave as he turned around, saw Vanya’s scared face, begging and pleading, and having to leave her behind. 

Like they’d always left her behind.

“We’ll get her out,” he told Allison. 

She nodded, curling into his side, as they shuffled up the stairs. Eventually Diego appeared, draping Allison’s other arm over his shoulder, offering his own support. His entire body was tense, his face fierce in a way that usually meant someone or something was about to get hurt.

“Any ideas on how to knock Luther out?” Diego asked. “Because big man’s not going to let us back down there.”

Klaus had never tried to open the door of some secret shelter with his powers--never had been so deliberate in thought and action--but he would have to try. He met Ben’s eyes where he watched from the top the stairs. Ben nodded in agreement. He always understood the things Klaus never could speak out loud.

 

**************

After an increasingly frustrating game of paddy-cake, Klaus when it search of his ever-elusive boyfriend.

“Have you seen Dave?” he asked as he passed by Diego’s room.

“Kitchen,” Diego said. He fiddled with a rabbit’s foot in his hand. “Last I checked. Looked like he was making camp down there. Something about refusing to climb the stairs again.” He glanced up at Klaus. “For a man who took a hit to the chest, he’s remarkably healed, though that’s still got to ache like a sonofabitch. Can’t say I blame him for staying put.”

“The stairs have become his arch-nemesis,” Klaus agreed. “Thanks,” he said as he passed along.

Klaus walked the length of the hallway, fingers trailing against the wall, teases of memories filtering from his fingertips to his brain. He stopped outside of Vanya’s tiny room. He’d never thought about it much as a kid, but now? It was barely bigger than a broom closet. Stark white walls. Almost a cell in and of itself. Klaus shuddered and hurried towards the stairs. He needed to bask in some emotional sunlight.

Dave was at the kitchen table, flipping through Reginald’s journal, with a fully packed duffle bag next to him.

“Going somewhere?” Klaus asked.

“I’m not climbing those stairs again for at least another day. There’s food, a bathroom, and a street exit on this floor. I’m good.”

“And we’re sleeping where?” Klaus asked.

“The table or floor will do,” Dave said. He looked up and smiled at Klaus. “We’ve both slept in worst places.”

They had. And for much longer than a night.

“So, what’s in your magic bag?” Klaus asked.

“Clothes for both of us. Shoes too, in case you need some fresh air. Basic toiletries. Some books. A few empty notebooks I found for Allison to use just in case. Just enough to get us through the night.”

“Always did have to be twenty steps ahead of everyone else,” Klaus said.

“Still got me shot in the end,” Dave said. “Lucky I had you.”

“Lucky me and lucky you,” Klaus said. He leaned down for a much needed kiss. He could still taste Dave’s smile when they parted.

His face was sad though, and Klaus knew he looked the same. It had been one hell of a day and it wasn’t even over.

“Anything of use in there?” he asked, pointing to the book.

Dave sighed. “It’s years of research, on all of you. I’m sure there’s some sort or organization to it, but I’m just trying to stick to the pages on Vanya. Even then, I feel horrible. It’s too personal, you know?”

Klaus nodded. “But it’s intel.”

Dave laughed. “It is. And it’s needed.” He closed the book and pushed it away. “He kept her locked up for months. Do you remember any of it?”

Klaus’ memories of that time were hazy at best. “I can’t--we were used to Vanya not being there.” There was no way to make it sound better. “She was always apart from us. I don’t think any of us would’ve noticed. We were so--”

“Everything for the Academy?” Dave asked.

Klaus shrugged. “She wasn’t wrong when she called us all assholes.”

“Well, all _I_ know is that if I was suddenly full of uncontrollable powers, thinking I killed my sister, possibly killed my boyfriend, locked up in a fortress room, and probably having flashbacks to the same time in my childhood? I’d be a fucking wreck,” Dave said. “And the worst fucking thing is I can’t completely disagree with Luther. But I don’t have to like how he went about it. Just shoved her in there and let her wake up like that? That’s torture.”

And Dave didn’t mean that figuratively. Interrogation Techniques 101. Luther would do well with the CIA.

“If we could only _talk_ to her. All of us. We could help. I know we can. But Luther won’t listen right now,” Klaus said. He looked down at his hands. “Ben and I are trying to synch up again. I was going to see if I could try and move the door through Ben, but all we’ve gotten so far is knocking over my hookah.”

Dave wrapped an arm around Klaus and pulled him close. “Hey, it’s a start.”

Klaus rested his head on Dave’s shoulder, breathed in his scent, and let himself bask in the comfort for just a few minutes. He just needed a recharge, and then he’d go back to his room and try again and again until he got stronger. Practice makes perfect and all of that bullshit.

**************

Klaus had been through an earthquake once. It wasn’t in his top fifty of life experiences and didn’t even compare to the shaking of the house now. It was like an explosion from the ground up, cracks from the very foundations running up to the ceiling. Explosion after explosion.

Luther had Allison. Diego, Klaus, and Ben were running to get Dave and Mom. Five was still gone. And Vanya? Whoever it was downstairs, taking the house down brick by brick, wasn’t their sister. Not one they’d ever known.

Getting hit on the head by falling ceiling tile? Hurt like hell. Klaus shook in pain, holding his head, and stared up in horror as the entire ceiling started to crack above them. He really didn’t want to die this way. 

“Diego!” he yelled, patting his brother on the shoulder. No response. Nothing. Diego must’ve been hit even harder than Klaus. “Diego!” he tried again.

They had to get up. They had to move. They had to get out here.

Klaus had carried men away from the battlefield before. Over his shoulders to safety, but that was when he wasn’t dealing with his own throbbing head from fallen debris and some odd, piercing frequency in the air that made it hard to concentrate. 

An entire section was about to fall on them. This was not how Klaus wanted to die for good. He had to get up, he had to get Diego, he wasn’t leaving his brother behind.

“Come on,” Ben yelled. He pulled Diego and Klaus, away just in time, as even part of the balcony crumbled under them.

“You’re late,” Klaus said.

“Jokes later,” Ben yelled back at him.

They got out to the alleyway. Diego pulled Klaus into a tight hug. “You saved me!”

“Excuse you,” Ben said.

“Well, sort of,” Klaus said.

“Klaus!” Dave yelled. He had his bag over his shoulder, and an arm around Mom, moving swiftly through the debris. “Klaus! Where are you? Report!”

“Here! We’re over here!” Klaus yelled back. He ran towards the street, Diego on his heels, and then everything was covered in dust and ash.

Their entire lives had been tied up in that building and now? Nothing but rubble. An entire city block gone in minutes? Had it only been minutes? It felt like hours.

Diego was clinging to Mom, had her tucked tight to his side. Klaus had a similar hold on Dave, unwilling to let him go. Ben hovered between them, hands in his pockets, eyes wide as he took in the utter ruin around them.

“Pogo?” Diego asked.

“He’s dead,” Luther said, emerging from around the corner, Allison trailing behind him. “Vanya killed him.”

Diego shook his head. “No, she wouldn’t.”

“She did,” Luther said. “I saw it before we got out.”

“Shit,” Dave cursed, pulling Klaus closer.

“Guys!” Five yelled. He ran up to them, eyes crazed. “The apocalypse is still on.”

Of course it was. Because nothing could ever go easy for the Hargreeves. Not even the end of the world.

“Any booze in that magic bag of yours?” he asked Dave.

Dave’s laugh was strangled as he pulled something out of the side pocket. “Will you settle for a juice box.”

His home was gone, his sister was a danger to herself and others, the world was still ending, and all Klaus had to toast the End of Days was a Capri Sun.

“It’ll have to do,” Klaus said.


	11. Below My Feet

Super Star Lanes had been one of the few places they were actually allowed to act their ages during their childhood. Dad encouraged it for being an activity that provided both strategy and exercise. Mom had encouraged it for the fun factor. They had all enjoyed it because it allowed them to feel normal for a few precious hours, surrounded by the sounds of the lanes, the arcade, and the smell of cheap fried food at the snack bar.

Now they were all gathered around one of the tables, covered in dust, wearing borrowed shoes, and trying to save the world. It was almost enough to make Klaus laugh himself to tears.

“We need to prepare ourselves,” Luther said. 

“For what?” Diego asked.

“For doing whatever it takes to handle Vanya,” Luther said, his face as grim as his words.

Klaus was never going to be for that and he was glad to see Allison agreeing, slapping Luther with her pad of paper that clearly read, _She’s our sister_.

“I’m with Luther on this one,” Five said. “We have to take fatal action. One life for billions? That’s not hard math.”

“It’s Vanya,” Klaus said. “She’s still in there somewhere. She has to be.”

“She killed Pogo,” Luther said.

“A day ago you were about one breath away from doing that yourself,” Dave said. He shrugged off Luther’s glare. “If we’re all being completely honest here about murderous intent. She woke up in a cell after going through what I’m sure was a few emotional harrowing days. She’s reacting in the worst way possible. _Vanya_ might not even be aware of what she’s doing, but we don’t know because we can’t talk to her. All we can assume is something might’ve broken in her mind, a protective barrier or a block.” He pulled Dad’s journal from his bag. “Feel free to skim it, but we have a ticking clock.”

“To stop her,” Diego said.

“To save her,” Dave said. “Your father quieted her powers once. There’s got to be a way to do it again.”

“Except we don’t have Dad or Pogo now,” Five said. He turned to Mom. “Do you remember anything?”

Mom shook her head. “Only the medicine, and your father and Pogo created the formula and supplied the pharmacy.”

Luther grabbed the journal. “We don’t have time for _ifs_ and _maybes_. No matter what we need to find her. She could be anywhere.”

Klaus flipped opened the paper next to him, desperate to have something to do with his hands. And there was Vanya, staring up at him from a full color ad.

“Or she’s here,” he said. “Look at this.”

“That’s right. Her concert is tonight,” Diego said. “Do you really think she’d go perform after everything that’s happened?”

“You have a better suggestion?” Klaus asked.

“Hello,” the chipper voice of Midge, one of the workers, interrupted their meeting. “My manager says if you’re not going to bowl, you’ve got to leave.”

Klaus rolled his eyes while Five shook his head and Luther picked up a random bowling ball, threw it behind his shoulder, and got a perfect strike.

Dave raised his eyebrows. “Okay, that’s impressive. Dangerous as hell, but impressive.”

Midge shrugged her shoulders and walked away, sure to come back soon for her regularly scheduled fifteen minute warnings. Because the most important thing in the world right now was whether or not they were loitering. 

“It’s not like we’re taking away business,” Klaus said as he looked around the nearly empty bowling alley. The only other people were a large group gathered for some kid’s birthday.

“And the fact that we paid for the privilege to sit here,” Diego said.

Luther shook his head. “Focus. We have to find Vanya. We have to stop her.”

Allison held up her pad and underlined the phrase _She’s our sister_ with such force, Klaus was surprised the paper didn’t tear. 

“We owe it to Dad,” Luther started.

“Bullshit,” Diego said. “I’ve had enough of owing anything to that bastard.”

“He sacrificed everything to bring us back together,” Luther argued.

“We wouldn’t be here, trying to stop Vanya and the end of the world, if he’d just been honest in the first place!” Diego yelled.

Dave pinched the bridge of his nose. “They always like this?”

“Yes,” Ben and Klaus said. 

Ben patted Dave’s shoulder. “Hey, at least you only have to put up with it for a few more hours. Then we’ll all be dead.”

“Thanks, Ben,” Dave said.

Ben grinned. “You’re welcome.” He leaned over Dave’s shoulder and poked Klaus hard enough to make him jump. “Maybe you should tell them about the thing.”

“What thing?” Klaus asked.

Ben wiggled his fingers in the air. “The moving thing.”

“We don’t know if that’s a thing,” Klaus said.

“Klaus,” Luther said. “Now is not the time to be arguing with your imaginary friends or whoever else is living in your mind.”

Dave tensed beside him, his fist clenched, all the warning signs that he was about to throw a punch. Klaus slid to the side to give him space. He’d only seen Dave truly lose his shit a handful of times, and he’d been teetering on that edge for days now.

“Why are you backing up?” Ben asked.

“Trust me,” Klaus said. 

“He’s talking to Ben,” Dave said, eyes closed and head tilted back now, his clenched fist beating out a rhythm on the pleather seats. “They’re arguing over whether or not they should tell you that Ben is able to move things by siphoning off Klaus’ powers and concentration and that Klaus is sometimes able to perform telekinesis, but they’re not sure how to tell you because I’m almost positive if I open my eyes right now you’re all going to look at me like I need to be committed.”

“I love you,” Klaus blurted out.

“Love you too, babe,” Dave said.

“Ben can do what?” Five asked.

“And tell him I was the one who saved Diego,” Ben said.

Dave sighed. “And Ben was the one who saved Diego.”

“Klaus!” Diego yelled, advancing towards. 

Klaus jumped out and danced out of Diego’s way. “I technically helped.”

Luther shook his head. “Now you’re getting _him_ to lie for you? You are unbelievable Klaus. Is there any way to silence that voice in your head that screams to be the center of attention? Because this needs to stop now.”

Klaus was stuck somewhere between anger and disbelief, so he didn’t see Dave go from his headache-induced painful sprawl to right up in Luther’s face, not even trying to back down.

“Hey, asshole, let’s have a chat, you and me. He,” and he pointed to Klaus, “has always been able to communicate with the dead. You know this. You’ve seen it. Your entire lives. He’s always clued in to wherever the dead are, which is why while you were busy being a glory-hunter and teacher’s pet, he was throwing every substance he could get his hands on down his throat or up his nose or in his veins, because it never stops. He’s never alone in his own head. And now we’re here, right now, in this bowling alley, because you choked out your own sister, stuck her in a cage like an animal, and didn’t take five whole minutes to _listen_ to someone other than yourself. Ben is here. He’s right there, perched on the top of the seats. He’s always been there, it’s not Ben’s fault, or Klaus’ fault, that you can’t see or hear him. It’s not Vanya’s fault she’s been lied to her entire life and now she’s a ticking time bomb ready to bring about the end of the world. And none of you at fault for being raised how you were. But you’re grown-up now. You’re adults. So start taking some fucking responsibility, realize that good leaders listen to their subordinates, and work together to save the entire world.” He turned his back to Luther, dismissing him completely. “And for God’s sake, have a little hope. We’re all still mostly alive right now. It’s not the end, not yet.”

“And the once dead guy should know,” Klaus said.

He didn’t know how to feel right then. It was rare, to have anyone stand up for him. Diego, occasionally just to be contrary. Allison, every now and then. Ben was always at his side. But Dave didn’t give one iota of a damn about Luther’s opinion, about the roles they all had always played, about how they had always tried to function as little toy soldiers marching in a row behind their leader.

Maybe there would be a new dawn and a new day.

Luther huffed. “That doesn’t change the fact.”

“You need to shut up,” Diego said to Luther.

“You know, I liked you a lot more before you got laid,” Klaus said as he sat down. Then he froze. He didn’t just say that? Did he? He looked at Allison and cringed. He did.”Which, which wasn’t his fault, because he was ridiculously high. Off his own drugs, not mine. And drunk. Off dad’s booze, not mine. And the girl thought he was a furry anyway and…”

“You need to stop talking,” Diego said to Klaus.

“Yup,” Klaus agreed.

Ben shook his head. “Why do you do that?”

“I don’t know,” Klaus whispered as Luther ran after Allison.

Five stood up, brushing some dust off his uniform jacket. “I need popcorn.”

Mom patted Klaus’ shoulder. “Klaus, dear, we’ve talked about this before. You need to think before you speak.”

Klaus nodded. “I’ll do better next time, Mom.”

She kissed his forehead, her cold lips their own comfort. “I know you will, dear.”

 

**************

After Luther had finally got Allison back, Klaus and Diego had been mistaken for Five’s fathers, Five had disappeared again, everyone had declined the kind invitation to Kenny’s birthday except Mom, and a round of snacks had been consumed. They were back to planning. Or trying to, at the very least.

“This certainly isn’t how I pictured the end of the world. Didn’t think I’d be here for it. Certainly didn’t think I’d be in a bowling alley with my boyfriend, most of his family, wearing smelly shoes broken in by hundreds of other people.”

A cheer went up in the middle of Dave’s rant.

“And I certainly didn’t picture Kenny’s birthday in the background.”

Allison was the first to crack, with a small smile across her face, Diego next, laughter leaking out of his mouth. Then it was all of them, laughing or smiling or both.

“Yeah, he’s going to fit in just fine,” Diego said as he passed the popcorn over to Dave.

“At least there’s decent food,” Dave said. “Certainly better than my last-last meal.”

“Mine was Spaghetti-O’s,” Ben said. He made a face. “I can still taste the can.”

“Okay, look, we can’t wait around for Five to return. The concert starts in thirty minutes,” Luther said.

“So what’s your plan?” Diego asked.

Klaus stole the popcorn from Dave. “This should be fun,” he said.

“My plan is to go to the Icarus Theater,” Luther said.

Diego shook his head. “That’s a location, not a plan.”

“Boys,” Mom warned. “Play nice.”

She looked so out of place here, in her retro clothes under the neon lights. She looked happy though, excited as much as she could be, to be outside the house, their home, her prison of sorts. A slice of Kenny’s birthday cake laid untouched next to her, but she kept pushing the plate around as if it admire it.

What would happen to her if they didn’t succeed? Would she just rust away? How were they going to recharge her?

“Your dad has some information about her in his journal,” Dave said. He gripped Klaus’ knee. “I’m not an engineer, but if we survive this? We’ll figure something out. We’ll take care of her.”

“You sure you’re not psychic?” Klaus asked.

Dave shook his head. “I know you. I know your heart.”

It was a perfect moment, until Ben shouted something about guns, Dave tensed and immediately pulled Mom and Klaus down for cover, and the bullets started flying.

“Who the hell are these guys?” Diego asked.

“Maybe they’re here for Kenny’s birthday,” Klaus joked even as Allison slapped him.

“No, I’m pretty sure they’re here for us,” Luther said.

“No shit,” Dave yelled. He immediately apologized to Mom.

“It’s okay, dear,” she said. “Just watch your language next time.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

The gunmen kept coming, a wall of guns and ammo peeling out of the shadows, the red glass of their goggles the only thing giving them away outside of the gunfire.

Diego got one with a knife. Luther grabbed a bowling ball. The lights went out. Music started playing. Klaus grabbed the cake.

“Really?” Ben asked.

“It could blind someone’s vision,” Klaus said. 

Diego got a few more with his knives, Luther a few more with the bowling balls, and Klaus one with his cake.

“They’re blocking the exists!” Klaus yelled as he ducked down again for cover.

“So what’s the plan now?” Diego asked.

Allison slapped Klaus’ leg to get his attention and pointed towards the lanes. Ben, Dave, and Mom were already near the end of them, slipping through the pools of shadows under the black lights, letting the others provide a distraction. It wasn’t the best option, but it was their only chance to get out.

“The lanes!” Luther yelled. “Let’s go!”

It was an order from their leader, and one they all followed insiticutally, between the bullets and the music and the adrenaline they answered Luther’s call. They all managed to get to the back, Ben holding the door open and yelling at them all to get their asses out of there.

No strike team was on the outside and they all took a moment to heave in breaths as the adrenaline burned out and the crisp night air tasted sweet with freedom.

Diego had Mom wrapped up in his arms, making sure she was okay. Allison and Luther were checking each other for any obvious wounds. Klaus went straight to Dave, who was hunched over at the end of the alley and dry heaving.

“Too much for soldier boy?” Diego asked.

“How about you recover from an actually fatal chest wound and then try to run from a haze of bullets while protecting a civilian next time?” Dave asked. “I’ll gladly stay back and throw some knives at people.”

“Seriously, you okay?” Klaus asked as he crouched down to feel Dave’s forehead. “Stitches didn’t pop or anything?”

“I just feel like a took three sledgehammers straight to the sternum,” Dave said. “Definitely not in fighting form. Find me a sniper rifle and stick me up in a nest. I’ll be more helpful there.”

“Yeah, but I like you where I can see you,” Klaus said. He helped Dave stand and pulled him into a quick hug. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Wouldn't want to be anywhere else,” Dave said.

“Liar.”

“Wherever you are, I’m there,” Dave said. “But let’s ditch most of the family next time. Ben can stay.”

“Only if Ben gets his own room,” Ben said.

“Deal,” Klaus said. He looked at the sky, the bright shining stars and the luminous moon. “Any other night this would be beautiful.”

“Everyone good?” Luther asked. “Time to go to the theater.” He turned to Diego. “We’ll make a plan when we get there.”

“ _We_?”

“We.”

**************

He’d had better burritos, but his current one from the nearest food truck was warm and Klaus couldn’t remember ever being this hungry before in his life, and even with the soapy taste of cilantro in his mouth, it still felt good.

“We’re supposed to be the lookouts,” Ben said.

“We’re outside, we’re looking, we’re the lookouts,” Klaus said. It’s not like he could conjure the dead workers who built the theater and ask them for any hidden passage secrets. Well, he could, but it wouldn’t help Vanya.

Luther and Diego had used Allison as a distraction to get Vanya’s attention. Dave and Mom were currently going through jackets and purses in the coat-check, trying to gather as many possible things as they could use for medical supplies. Luther and Diego were trying to be the big heroes of the day. Five was still gone and Klaus and Ben were regulated to their normal jobs as lookouts until one or the other was needed.

“Do you hear gunfire?” Ben asked.

Klaus did, but considering where they were in the city, it could’ve come from anywhere. Then it repeated, louder, closer, more than one gun. Klaus glanced behind the truck and ducked down again.

“Shit! ChaCha! She’s out there. We’ve got to get the others.”

“Yeah, inside, where the gunfire is,” Ben said.

The inside of the theater was chaos. People were screaming and pushing as they ran towards the exists, patrons and ushers abandoning their posts. Klaus ran by the coat-check and found Mom there, already patching someone up with makeshift gauze and a tiny first aid kit.

“Dave?” he asked. 

“He knocked one of those masked men unconscious and then took his gun,” she said. “I believe he’s gone for higher ground.”

“Smart man,” Ben said. 

The theater was full with the deafening sound of rapid gunfire and over it all the sound of a haunting violin. 

Vanya.

“Klaus, come on!” Ben yelled.

Vanya was glowing, a faint white-blue, her eyes even glowed bright in the low light of the theater seats.There was some sort of wind around her, blowing back her hair, and even as her music played, the gunfire roared, and his siblings yelled, there was that piercing undercurrent of sound he’d heard earlier in the day. Dust was starting to fall from the ceiling, just like it had at home. That was enough to break Vanya’s spell.

“Guys, ChaCha’s coming!” Klaus yelled. He stopped short. “Five! Where have you been?”

“Busy,” Five said.

“Klaus, get down!” Luther yelled. 

He ducked just in time as an entire crew of masked men started shooting at him. They changed course when someone started shooting at them.

“Dave’s around the corner,” Ben said as he slid next to Klaus. “He told me to give you this, to keep you anchored.”

Dave’s dog tags clinked in Ben’s hand. Worn and dented from a life at war, half a hole in one from the bullet he took to the chest, and full of memories of too hot sun and the smell of sweat, and laughter, the curl of a smile through cigarette smoke around a makeshift fire pit outside their tent. The warmth of Klaus’ hand tugging at them, pulling Dave along to a bed or a corner or anywhere they could be aone. 

“Klaus?” Ben asked.

Klaus shoved the dogtags over his head, feeling grounded as they rested on his chest, against his own. Feeling clearer for the first time that day. Like he could finally breathe. He looked at Ben. He looked at Vanya on the stage, the strike force with guns surrounding them, and Dave the lone shooter on their side. Their family needed them.

Ben nodded.

Klaus looked down at his hands.

“Come on,” he whispered. “Come on, you fuckers. Work.”

An eerie electric blue glow came from his palms, energy flowing from Klaus to Ben and back. Klaus stood and Ben mirrored him, until he lifted his hoodie and let lose his power.

There was no winning against interdimensional wiggly worms.

Ben had always been amazing, even alive with the monster under his skin, but Klaus never understood what that power felt like until now. The pain of it all, being ripped apart bit by bit through various dimensions, and the satisfaction of getting a job done, protecting the family, and being a hero in their own way. 

“Now who’s the lookout?” Ben asked when it was done.

Klaus laughed even as he collapsed into one of the plush theater seats, needing to rest for just a second.

“Wish I had another burrito right now,” he said. He jumped as a pack of crackers hit him in the head, with Dave taking the seat next to him.

“How?” Klaus asked.

Dave shrugged. “A hunch that you’d try something, and a guess that whatever it is your powers are doing now will burn through your body’s energy reserves.”

“He’s still too smart for you,” Ben said.

“I know,” Klaus agreed as he demolished the packet of crackers. “Wish I had some...oh.”

Dave dropped a bottle of water into Klaus’ lap.

“Seriously, you can tell me if you’re actually psychic. I won’t judge you.” Klaus said.

A change started to come over Vanya, her playing got louder, a white light shone from her chest, and then everything on her started to turn white. The columns of the theater started to crack, lightbulbs shattered above them and glass rained down.

“”Everyone together,” Luther ordered. They came to him, like they always did, answering his call. “Where’s Diego?” he asked.

“I’m going to guess he went after ChaCha,” Five said.

Diego appeared then, bleeding and looking exhausted. 

“Welcome back,” Luther said. “Where were you?”

“Honoring a memory,” Diego said with a nod towards Five. He looked at Vanya. “So how do you want to end this thing.”

“We surround her. We came at her from all angles,” Luther said. 

“So it’s a suicide mission,” Klaus said. He’d died in worse ways than this, and far more alone.

“It’s worth it, if one of us can get through,” Five said.

“Dave, huddle down with Mom,” Diego said. “Please. We got this. You need to look after her.”

Dave turned to Klaus. “Your call. I don’t want to leave you.”

“You also can’t run and attack right now,” Klaus said. “And Diego’s right. Mom needs someone. And if we live? We’ll need someone.” He pulled Dave close, pressed their foreheads together, and refused to kiss him here, to even think that this place could be their last kiss. “Hold on to hope, right?”

“Hold on to hope,” Dave agreed. He hugged Klaus painfully tight. “You do not have permission to die, Hargreeves.”

“That an order?” Klaus asked.

“Yes,” Dave said.

“We’re running out of time,” Luther said.

Dave nodded, held Klaus for just a second longer, and then stayed low, out of Vanya’s sightline, and left.

And then it was just them. The Umbrella Academy. One last mission. 

And it failed.

Vanya had them tethered by her power, draining the life from them, draining their powers, all of them locked up in her white light, except Ben and Allison. Klaus’ connection to Ben was cut off here, Vanya’s power overriding it. Through the blinding light of it all Klaus could just see Allison, directly behind Vanya, tears running down her face as she held a gun to the back of Vanya’s head.

The gun went off, Vanya’s head snapped back, they dropped to the ground and something like a missle shot out of Vanya’s chest, through the roof, up into the sky.

They were all somehow still alive. Even Vanya. The world hadn’t ended.

Allison had Vanya cradled in her arms as they formed a protective circle, family on the inside, everyone else on the outside. 

“We did it,” Luther said. “We saved the world.”

Sad, desperate, disbelieving laughs echoed through the empty theater.

Klaus let out a deep breath once they were done and turned to look at the night sky overhead. Then he stopped and looked closer, standing to make sure what he was seeing was actually what he was seeing.

The moon was breaking apart. A large chunk was hurtling towards them. He suddenly had a flashback to all those dinosaur stories Ben had been obsessed with as a kid and how they were wiped out.

“Uh, guys,” Klaus said.

Five was in the background, mumbling about some plan to do with time travel. It was a way out, but Klaus didn’t want to leave here. He couldn’t leave Mom and Dave behind. He couldn’t leave all these people behind. And there was no guarantee they all wouldn’t get torn apart traveling through time. How many time jumps did Klaus realistically have in him? How many did Five?

Klaus stared at the chunk of moon hurtling toward them and held his hands out, trying to tell it hello or goodbye, he couldn’t decide which. He stood there and called on everything.

On all the potential he was supposed to have.

On all the power he was supposed to hold.

On every ghost in every corner of the globe in every dimension who had ever whispered or screamed his name.

On the ground under his feet and the memories of who had built this theater, this city, this village, of spirits of the indigenous people who had been caretakers of this land before the first ship bearing colonists had arrived on their shores.

On hope. 

On his siblings, their love, their connection.

He heard his name shouted as the air whooshed in his ears, as something shot out of him, Dave’s voice, Ben’s voice, all the ghosts. 

And then there was nothing. Silence. Only his slowly fading heartbeat as his knees gave out from under him.

“Son of a bitch,” he said as he fell. “It was about the moon.”


	12. In a World Gone Shallow, In a World Gone Lean

The beep of hospital monitors had become as natural a sound to Dave as his own breathing.

Somehow, they’d stopped the apocalypse. Somehow the Commission wasn’t after them all. Somehow they’d managed to create some sort of splintered off timeline. But it still came at a cost.

Hundreds had died instead of billions; it was to be expected with chunks of the moon falling to earth. There had been earthquakes, tsunamis, mudslides, avalanches, and out of season hurricanes. The various countries with space programs had pulled their heads out of their asses long enough, and temporarily halted the terraforming of Mars, to attend to the moon. 

Buildings, ancient and new, were gone. Some cities were wiped out. Some places would take centuries to recover. There was some concern over food shortage, but luckily enough seeds had been kept in storage to at least keep the world supplied in essential grains. 

And apparently moon ash made quite rich dirt.

There had been a more personal cost too. 

“You okay?” Ben asked.

Dave turned to Ben, found him lounging against the door, and gave him a sad smile.

“Starting to get a crick in my neck,” he said.

“Maybe you should get your ass out of that chair then,” Ben said.

“Wait your turn,” he told Ben. “I’ve still got another hour with them.”

“Fifteen minutes,” Ben said, but he left Dave to his musings.

Klaus and Vanya were both still in comas, Vanya’s mostly medically induced, and Klaus’ from burning himself out in all senses of the word. They had to keep him strapped to the bed since he’d started to levitate in his healing sleep.

“You need to wake up,” Dave said, running a hand through Klaus’ curls. “Ben needs someone else to talk to. He can write messages to the others, but it’s not the same. He’s getting stronger though, you’d be proud of him.”

Dave ran a hand down Klaus’ arm to his fingernails. Allison and Claire had painted them this morning, a pretty glittery blue that Klaus would love.

“Luther, Five, and Ben are getting through your dad’s notes. They think they might have a plan to treat Vanya now. Mom’s helping where she can. I swear she’s trying to fatten me up.” He laughed. “I’m actually thankful your bastard of a father include the schematics for her charging system. Five and Diego have mastered it, even made a portable one just in case. She goes outside a lot more now. The air is fresh here, in the mountains.”

Diego knocked on the door. “Dave, dinnertime. Get your ass out of that chair.”

“I’ll be there,” Dave said, waving him off.

“You got five minutes, then I’m dragging you out,” Diego said.

Dave knew he would, and had, chair included. 

He turned back to Klaus and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

“If only fairytales were real and it would just take a kiss to wake you,” he whispered. “Take your time to heal, babe. I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

He dimmed the lights as he left the healing ward and ran up the stairs to the main kitchen.

The Hargreeves had an entire estate in the Catskills, one that rivaled the Vanderbilts. It was fully staffed, even though none of the Hargreeves siblings had ever been there, or even knew it existed until they found mention of it in Reginald’s journal. The lower levels were more a laboratory than a home, but they were equipped enough to heal Vanya and Klaus and keep them safe and alive.

Upstairs was full of air and light. Allison had undertaken the redecorating, sending various historical pieces back to their country of origin, and trying to lighten everything up even while keeping with the historic preservation guidelines. There were bedrooms in the double digits, two libraries, a conservatory, three greenhouses, and a ballroom. There was an entire wing just for the staff, including their own kitchen. It was a monstrosity of wealth and privilege and the Hargreeves were trying to make it a home. 

A real one this time.

“Look who finally decided to join us,” Five said as Dave took his place at the table.

Dave ignored him and turned to Claire, who was eating chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs. “Did you pick the nail polish today? It’s very pretty.”

“I did,” Claire said. “It reminded me of the stars.”

Allison smiled down at her daughter and patted her head. She still couldn’t speak, though could make sounds now, which was an improvement on the silence before. They were all working on their sign language, Claire easily besting all of them in their lessons. 

Dave never would have pictured this for his future, not even in his most unimaginable of dreams, but he wasn’t upset about where he’d landed. Sure there were things he would change, big and small, but eating a warm meal, with a roof over his head, and surrounded by people he cared about? It was hard to find anything to complain about.

“Uncle Dave, your glass is moving,” Claire said.

He looked over to Ben. “That you?”

“Nope,” Ben said with a grin.

Before the doctor even entered the room, Dave knew what he was going to tell them. It was a race to get to Klaus’ bedside first, but Dave wasn’t too noble to used a well placed elbow to get there first.

After all, he had promised to be there when Klaus woke up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really cannot properly express my gratitude to this fandom for embracing this fic so wholeheartedly. Thank you so much for your comments, your kudos, and your support.
> 
> Special thanks to Nat and Alex who encouraged this all from the very beginning.


End file.
